The Fifth to Die

by J. D. Barker

  She saw Nash enter from the far end of the room, spot her, and cross the cafeteria, taking in what was beginning to look like a refugee camp.

  “We’ve got an ID on the boy in the truck,” he told her. “His name was Wesley Hartzler. He’s a Jehovah’s Witness. Went missing sometime yesterday. He attended services first thing in the morning, then they spread out around town to try and recruit.”

  “Do they know where he went?”

  Nash shook his head. “They don’t file a flight plan or anything. Sounds like it was completely unorganized. Everyone goes out the door and heads off in different directions.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “He paired off with a girl named Kati Quigley. I just hung up with her mother. She’s missing too. We put out an Amber Alert. I told both sets of parents to meet us here so we can get statements. Figured that would be faster. There’s more,” he said. “Eisley said cause of death on the boy was blunt-force trauma to the head. No water in the lungs.”

  “So he wasn’t tortured?”

  “I’m thinking he just got in the way and our unsub kept the girl.”

  Clair opened the notes app on her phone and ran through the names Kloz gave her. “We don’t have obituaries for Quigley or Hartzler.”

  Nash shrugged. “Maybe they both got in the way. Jehovah’s Witnesses show up on our unsub’s doorstep, probably out of the blue, they see something they shouldn’t . . .” His voice trailed off, but Clair knew where he was going. She glanced around the room. Of the eight potential victims Kloz identified, four had children. All the children were accounted for. They were all here.

  Nash followed her eyes. “If he took her, it was because she was convenient, not because we kept him from one of these kids. The fact that we found the boy and not her tells me she’s still alive.”

  “He could be torturing her right now.”

  “We’re getting close.”

  “Were they on foot? Get uniforms to their starting point, have them branch out on a house-to-house. Make sure they go in pairs—we don’t want someone stumbling into Bishop or the unsub alone.”

  “Already happening. I spoke to Dispatch right after I hung up with Eisley. I’m heading out there now.”

  Clair nodded, then dialed Agent Poole.

  Seven hundred and eight miles away, Special Agent Poole answered on the second ring. Clair told him about Wesley Hartzler, and that they’d located all Bishop’s potential victims and gotten them safely to the hospital.

  “When we hang up, I want you to call SAIC Hurless. He’s my commanding officer. Fill him in on the house-to-house. He can get you more bodies,” Poole told her.

  Clair felt people watching her in the cafeteria, her every movement telegraphed and documented by the eyes of the people she brought here. She walked past the two officers stationed at the cafeteria entrance out into the hallway. “We interrupted Bishop’s endgame. He’s going to retaliate.”

  “You can’t think about that. You need to focus on keeping those people safe. We’ll find him.” Poole sounded like he was shuffling papers. His voice dropped lower. “I’ve got five more bodies down here in that lake, Detective. Possibly a sixth body. Dismembered. The pieces sunk in plastic bags and weighed down with rocks, just rotting away in the water.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I’ve got the diary too. Porter left it for me.” More rustling of papers, and then he went on. “The mailbox on the adjoining house said ‘Bishop.’ I’m down at the county property appraiser’s office, going through records.”

  Clair said, “We ran searches on that a few months ago but hit a wall. There’s no national database, so we threw darts at possible counties. The municipalities with records only go back so far electronically, and there are a lot of Bishops out there. Our search was limited to Illinois and the surrounding states. We never considered South Carolina.”

  “Yeah, well, sometimes you have to dig the old fash . . .” he trailed off.

  “Find something?”

  No reply.

  “Agent Poole?”

  “Does Sam have any kind of connection to South Carolina?”

  “He . . . he did his time as a rookie in Charleston I think, before coming to Chicago. Why?”

  “What year did he come to Chicago?”

  “Why?”

  Poole let out a breath, the weight of his words heavy. “The property with the lake and the two surrounding houses, all of it is in his name.”

  103

  Gabby

  Day 4 • 8:49 a.m.

  Gabby Deegan got off the number 57 bus at West Roosevelt and walked the three blocks to Designated Driver in the falling snow, nearly slipping twice on the icy sidewalk.

  The building wasn’t very large, a squat, square structure with a flat roof surrounded by half a dozen small white hatchbacks covered in branding for Designated Driver and the words STUDENT DRIVER plastered on every available surface in bright red. The cars were layered in snow, no doubt sidelined by the weather.

  Gabby pulled open the front door, fighting the wind, and ducked inside. A woman in her mid-fifties looked up from a copy of the Tribune and frowned at her. “We’re closed today, sweetie. I just came in to catch up on some paperwork. I can make you an appointment for next week after this weather breaks.”

  Pulling off her gloves and hat, Gabby approached the counter. It smelled like burnt coffee. “I’m actually not here to make an appointment.”

  The woman’s frown deepened. She returned to her paper. “Well, we’re not buying anything either.”

  “I think a friend of mine was in here a few days ago. I’m trying to find her.” She loaded a picture of Lili Davies on her phone and held it toward the woman.

  The woman’s eyes met Gabby’s, and for a second Gabby thought she was going to ask her to leave again. Then she set down the paper and looked at the phone. “Pretty little thing, looks familiar.” She reached for the phone and held it close to her face, squinting. “I don’t know how you kids can use these little things. Mine is as big as a tablet.”

  “She would have been in here earlier this week.”

  Her head tilted to the side. She glanced at her newspaper, then handed the phone back to Gabby, frowning again. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I don’t appreciate it.”

  “I’m not—”

  The woman behind the counter picked up her newspaper and folded the front page over, setting it down in front of Gabby. “I should call the police and report you.”

  Gabby looked down at this morning’s Tribune. Lili’s picture was on the front page, along with that of two other girls, girls she didn’t know. There was a boy too. The headline read: KILLER CLAIMS THIRD VICTIM, ANOTHER MISSING. POLICE STUMPED.

  “Was she in here?”

  “Of course not, I’d remember something like that. You go telling people that she was, and your parents will be hearing from our lawyers.”

  Gabby wanted to push the issue, to shout at this woman, make her check the records, but she didn’t. Her eyes had fixed on the small stack of business cards on the counter beside her. She grabbed one, put on her hat and gloves, and pushed back out into the cold.

  Once outside, she loaded the picture Lili had sent her back onto her phone. She pinched the image and zoomed in on the iPad in Lili’s hand, on the message that said she won, then she glanced at the business card, then at the front of the building.

  The phone number on the card, the building, and even the cars ended with 0000. The one on Lili’s iPad, the number she had been told to call to claim her prize, was completely different, and even the area code didn’t match.

  Gabby dialed the number Lili had been given and pressed the phone tight against her ear, sealing out the howling wind. Her call was answered on the fifth ring. Gabby could see the woman inside the small building, still reading her paper.

  “Designated Driver Driving School, how may I help you?” The voice on the other end of the line was gruff, a man’s voice. He had troubl
e pronouncing the s in school.

  104

  Poole

  Day 4 • 8:50 a.m.

  “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your call earlier, but I did, so I gotta ask, who is Sam?”

  Sheriff Hana Banister sat on a stool across the table from Poole, files and boxes laid out between them. She had apologized repeatedly about the lack of computerized records. The county was small, their budget was smaller, and every time the matter came up, a more urgent need for the funds vetoed any plan to enter legacy data into the current system, which only went back a handful of years.

  Poole had the property deeds in a neat stack at his side, Porter’s name glaring at him. “Detective Sam Porter with Chicago Metro. Until recently, he was the lead investigator on the 4MK task force.”

  “What happened, recently?”

  Poole couldn’t tell her, not yet. He wasn’t sure what he was dealing with yet. “He let the case get to him, he let it go personal.” Poole finished with the current box and slid it aside. “I don’t see his name anywhere else, only that particular piece of property.”

  Banister sat back on her stool, stifling a yawn. “The name Porter doesn’t ring any bells, and I grew up around here. I was born in the clinic four doors down from this very building, actually. This is a fairly close-knit community, farmers mostly. A few of the families have sold off over the years to developers, but I like to think I’ve got a good handle on the people. We get our share of rowdy teenagers and such, but that’s mainly because there isn’t much else to do. Until this morning, the last murder we had was nearly six years ago, when Edison Lindley’s wife took it upon herself to end his cheating ways with the help of a heaping spoonful of arsenic in his soup. She called it in too and was waiting on her porch when I got there, glass of lemonade in her hand. Not exactly the crime of the century.”

  Pool said. “You mentioned developers. Do you know the name Arthur Talbot or Talbot Enterprises?”

  “I do know the name, but only from the news—crazy what happened to him. If he set his eye on property out here, I would have heard about it at town hall. Property sales are usually talked about before I give the crime report.” Banister raised a legal-size folder above her head. “Got it.”

  “Got what?”

  “The report on the fire out there that destroyed the main house.”

  She opened the folder on the table and began flipping through the contents. “August, 1995. Way before my time. Ruled arson on the spot. Tom Langlin wrote it up. He’s retired now but still lives in the area. I can drive you out to his place if you think it would be helpful. According to this, the entire area reeked of gasoline. By the time the trucks arrived, the house was a total loss. They found three bodies inside, all male. Cause of death says undetermined due to condition on account of the fire. One survivor, an Anson Bishop, twelve years old. He had been fishing out at the lake and came back when he saw the smoke. They believe his father was one of the men found inside. His mother was suspected of starting the fire—looks like she disappeared. Her information went out on the wire, but she was never located. The trailer behind the house had been rented to a Simon and Lisa Carter. They also went missing after the fire. No hits on their wire report either. The boy went to the Camden Treatment Center not too far from here.”

  “May I see that?”

  She passed him the file.

  Poole’s phone rang. He answered the call on speaker.

  “Frank? This is Granger. I just hung up with Hurless, filled him in on everything. They’re still searching the water, but I think we’ve found them all. Five complete bodies and at least one more in bags. We don’t have enough bags for more than one body, but I suppose it’s possible the remains came from multiple sources. We won’t know for sure until the medical examiner has a look. I’m having everything transported back to Charlotte, our closest lab.”

  “Thanks. Keep me posted on what you find. If you can’t reach me, go to Hurless.”

  “I’m back at what’s left of that house right now. Obvious fire. My office tried to pull records, but they’re coming up blank.”

  “I’ve got the file in my hand. I’ll have Sheriff Banister scan and e-mail it to you.”

  “What does it say?”

  Poole repeated what Banister told him.

  “The trailer survived the fire, and it looks like someone has been in there recently. The back bedroom has been ransacked—somebody moved the bed, tore up the floor. We got a backpack full of clothes. Some camping gear. It’s strewn all over the room. Somebody was looking for something.”

  Poole glanced at the diary sitting on the edge of the table. “I think that was Detective Porter.”

  “Can’t tell if he found whatever he wanted. We’re shipping all this back to Charlotte too. We’ll photograph everything. I’m gonna try and get some heavy equipment out here to go through the remains of that house. It’s been a while, but we may find something that ties back to the bodies at the lake.”

  Poole’s phone vibrated on the table. The caller ID popped up. “That’s SAIC Hurless on my other line. I’ve got to go. Keep me posted.”

  “You got it.”

  Poole thumbed the display and answered the other call. “Agent Poole.”

  “Frank. I think we got something. You’re gonna need to get back on the plane.”

  “What is it?”

  “You were right about the prison guards at Stateville. I spoke to the warden. We’ve got a guard who was suspected of passing information for Libby McInley, but nothing was actually proven, so he wasn’t charged. He transferred shortly after all of this played out. Guess where he went?”

  “Where?”

  “New Orleans.”

  Porter’s disposable phone.

  “That’s our connection to Porter. Any record of the two of them knowing each other or working together?”

  “Nothing yet, but I just got this. I’ll put people on it right away,” Hurless told him. “His name is Vincent Weidner. He’s working now, on the clock until four this afternoon. You need to get out there. The Orleans warden said he’d try and stall him, keep him on site after his shift if he has to. They’re not going to say anything to him until you arrive—we don’t want to tip him off. Granger told me what turned up at the lake. We need to find out what this guard knows and get on Porter’s heels. He’s deep in this.”

  Poole told him about the property records.

  “Get on him. None of this slips out. I don’t want the media running some half-baked story.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I spoke to Detective Norton too. I’ve got four teams on their way to help with the house-to-house. I’ll put in a call to Porter’s captain too. He needs to know what’s going on. We’re close, Frank.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hurless disconnected.

  Poole looked up at Sheriff Banister. “Can you drive me to the airport in Greenville?”

  She nodded.

  Poole handed her one of his cards. “You find anything else, call me or SAIC Hurless. His number’s on the back. Send that file over to Granger too, as soon as you can.”

  Scooping up the diary, he started for the door. He’d read it on the plane.

  105

  Diary

  Seven minutes past three in the morning.

  I lie awake.

  The girl two doors down is crying again, she is crying something fierce.

  I’m staring at the ceiling.

  My knife no doubt back in Dr. Oglesby’s desk drawer.

  With the picture?

  I wasn’t sure about this. I imagined Dr. Oglesby would keep the picture close. I wanted to see it. If I closed my eyes, I saw the photograph in perfect detail. I had no trouble recalling Mrs. Carter’s body wrapped in the sheets, lying with Mother. I remembered this as easily as I remembered the day I saw her at the lake, then back in her kitchen—

  She was shaking. “I think I wanted you to see. I watched you walk out there with your fishing pole. I knew you’d
be there.”

  “Why would you . . .”

  “Sometimes a woman wants to be desired, is all.” She took another drink. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

  I did think she was pretty.

  I wanted the photograph back. The idea of Dr. Oglesby holding my picture, studying it, soaking in that image, this churned my stomach. He wasn’t meant to see that picture. That wasn’t meant for him at all.

  A loud cry. A choked cry.

  Nurse Gilman’s shoes tapping down the tile floor.

  She would comfort the girl. This was becoming the pattern. An extended cry, the sound of Nurse Gilman, the click of the girl’s door, then eventually muffled sobs and silence.

  I rolled the paper clip between my fingers beneath my sheets, mindful of the camera I was certain watched me from the air vent.

  I had picked the paper clip up off the tile floor when I bent down to adjust my slipper earlier. I don’t know who dropped it, I didn’t care—all that mattered was that I had it now. I knew I could pick my lock with it, and I would do exactly that, when it was time to go. It was not time to go yet.

  Another muffled sob from the room two doors down, then nothing.

  What did she look like?

  How old was she?

  What happened to her?

  I could almost picture her. Nurse Gilman’s arms around this frail thing wrapped in sheets, the two of them—

  I couldn’t leave without the picture. I couldn’t leave without my knife.

  I would have to go at night.

  The staff was thinnest at night.

  I never heard more than two nurses in the halls at night, sometimes only one, and of course there was the guard at the end of the hall to consider. I would need to escape my room, get down the hall, past the nurses’ station to the doctor’s office, pick his lock (a Kwikset, much easier to pick than the one on my door). Inside, I could retrieve my knife.