Dead River

by Fredric M. Ham

  “Yes, McCarthy Electrical Contracting,” he said proudly.

  “I need a list of all your employees, their addresses, and phone numbers.”

  “Sure. I’ll get that for you in the morning. Do you suspect one of my employees?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I have to check out every one of them. How many people work for you?”

  “Let’s see. I got twenty electricians and three people that work in the office.”

  “What time do you open in the morning?”

  “My secretary, Judy, is usually there at seven forty-five, and I get in around eight.”

  Goldman scribbled a few notes and then looked at McCarthy. “Good.”

  “Wait a minute.”

  “What?”

  “Do you also want the names of the electricians that work part-time?” McCarthy asked.

  “I want the name of every person that draws a paycheck from your company.”

  “Okay then, there’s two, no, three. Yes, there’s three part-timers. In fact, one of them watched the house while we were in Colorado.”

  Goldman’s eyes widened slightly. “You mean he house-sat the entire time you were gone?”

  “Yep, that’s exactly what he did. He took us to the airport in Orlando then stayed here until we got back. He also picked us up from the airport.”

  “What make and color car does he drive?”

  “Oh, I think it’s an older model Oldsmobile, Cutlass I believe.”

  “What color?”

  “It’s black.”

  “Do you know the year?”

  “Hell no, I don’t know the year.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “David Sikes.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “Frontenac.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “A few miles south of here.”

  “Thank you, Mr. McCarthy. Now if you would, go wake up your wife and ask her to come down.”

  “Why do you want to talk to her? I’ve told you everything.”

  “You have and I appreciate that. But I’d like to ask her a few questions too.”

  “Yeah, all right.”

  Within ten minutes Sally McCarthy walked into the kitchen. She wore a white terry-cloth robe, and her feet were bare. Goldman thought Sally was pretty. Her hair was dark, almost black, and her eyes a deep blue. In spite of her forty-seven years, she still had a shapely figure. Her husband was another story, but she worked out at least four times a week. And it showed.

  One of the deputy sheriffs got up from his chair and offered it to Sally.

  “I’m sorry we had to intrude on you at this hour, Mrs. McCarthy, but something has happened and we need your help,” Goldman explained.

  “Yes, Joe told me about the letter with our son’s name and phone number on it. I have no idea how that happened. I’m glad you don’t think Jack had anything to do with those murders.”

  “We don’t.” Goldman paused for a moment and stared at Sally sitting in the kitchen chair. “I want to talk to you about the man who stayed here while you and your husband were in Colorado.”

  “Oh yes, David Sikes. He even took us to the airport and picked us up when we got back. Nice man.”

  Goldman looked into her eyes. He asked questions about David Sikes, personal questions that he knew Sally would be able to answer. He jotted notes in his small notepad. Then he turned to Joe and questioned him about Sikes’s work habits, if he knew of any hobbies Sikes had, or peculiar habits.

  “Mr. Goldman, this is becoming scary,” Sally said with a shiver in her voice.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I’m thinking back to the conversation Joe and I had with David on the way back from the airport. He talked almost the whole time about the two murders. He knew everything about them. He told us he closely followed the news coverage on TV. We tried to ask him about the house, if everything went all right, you know normal stuff you’d ask after being away for a while.”

  “But he only wanted to talk about the murders?”

  “That’s right.”

  The case was beginning to unfurl, pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. However, there was one piece Goldman hadn’t figured out, but he had a hunch. How had the killer gotten Sara Ann Riley into his car?

  Goldman was certain that Gabriel’s Koinonia Agnos, his Society of the Pure, was a brotherhood of one. And he’d updated it, modernized how business was conducted. He was a new-age preceptor, without the faction of loyal followers, the probata, whose sole responsibility was to track down and apprehend women who corrupted society. Gabriel acted alone, and as such, he had to resort to a more creative means of apprehending the evil-doers.

  “Do you own a gun, Mr. McCarthy?”

  “I have a revolver in the bedroom, for protection.”

  “Do you mind if we take a look at it?” Goldman asked.

  “Sure, but I’d like to put on a pair of pants first.”

  “Let’s go.”

  McCarthy led one of the deputies and Goldman to the bedroom. He pulled on a pair of blue jeans and then opened his nightstand drawer. He reached toward the back of the drawer. His forehead wrinkled. He tried again, his hands searching the back of the drawer.

  He straightened up and looked at Goldman. “Damn, it’s gone!”

  “Maybe you locked it up in a safe before you left for Colorado?”

  “Naw. I always keep it right here.” McCarthy pointed to the open drawer.

  “What kind of gun is it?”

  “A revolver, Smith & Wesson, .38 special. It’s got a three-inch barrel, with a blue finish.”

  Goldman wrote more in his notepad. “Is it registered to you?”

  “Of course it’s registered to me.”

  “Do you have the serial number written down somewhere?”

  “It’s in my safe at work.”

  “I’ll need to get that from you tomorrow.”

  McCarthy scratched his exposed stomach in a circular motion and shook his head. “Shit, I can’t believe that asshole took my gun.”

  “You think Sikes took it.”

  “Who the hell else would?”

  The three rejoined the others in the kitchen.

  “Would both of you come to the Cocoa Beach Police Station tomorrow morning at eight-thirty?” Goldman asked.

  McCarthy looked over toward his wife then shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose. But what for?”

  “I want you to listen to an audio tape.”

  55

  THE NEXT MORNING the McCarthys met Glenn Wilkerson at the Cocoa Beach Police Station at eight-thirty. Wilkerson led them to a sterile-feeling interrogation room with bright lighting and a tape recorder resting in the middle of a large table. On one side of the room was a two-way mirror that spanned almost the entire wall.

  “Agent Goldman should be here any minute,” Wilkerson announced. “Would you two like a cup of coffee?”

  Joe McCarthy declined, but Sally accepted the offer. Wilkerson left and returned with two Styrofoam cups filled with piping-hot black coffee. The three sat in the room, waiting. Wilkerson checked his watch as he sipped his steaming coffee, Joe tapped his fingers on the table, and Sally blew into her cup to cool the hot java.

  The door to the room swung open. “Good morning,” Goldman said. He sat in the remaining chair. “Let’s get to it.”

  Wilkerson had the audio tape loaded in the machine.

  “This is the first recording of the killer’s voice,” Wilkerson said. “He talks to Valerie Riley.”

  Wilkerson pressed the play button. At first only noise blared from the small speakers. The McCarthys listened as the wavering hiss filled the room, and then a voice came. “Adam Riley will answer the phone,” Wilkerson said.

  “Hello?”

  “Let me speak to Valerie.” The metallic voice resonated in the small room.

  “Who’s this?”

  “I said, let me speak to Valerie.”

  Ther
e was dead air except for the tape hiss. Wilkerson looked at the McCarthys. “Valerie Riley takes the phone.”

  “He—llo?”

  “I have you daughter.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I’m sorry I had to take her.”

  “But—but why? Where is she?”

  “Valerie, my dear, I don’t have much time.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “I want you to know that this is not a ransom call. Sara Ann will be returned to you.”

  “Then what do you want? Tell us what you want.”

  “You will get a letter. Today. I will call again.”

  There was a click, and then tape hiss again filled the room. Wilkerson punched the pause button.

  Goldman looked at the McCarthys. Joe appeared puzzled. He rubbed his colossal noggin. Sally reacted differently to the metallic voice. Her face was ashen.

  “Mrs. McCarthy, are you all right?” Goldman asked.

  “Please play it again.”

  Wilkerson pressed rewind, and the tape whizzed then stopped. Then he pressed play. Sally leaned forward, close to the tape recorder. She cocked her head slightly to the right and moved even closer.

  About halfway through the recording tape, Sally suddenly slapped her right hand over her mouth and stared at Goldman. Her large blue eyes showed terror. Wilkerson stopped the machine.

  “What is it?” Goldman asked.

  “Good God, it’s him.”

  “It’s who?’

  “David Sikes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” Sally brushed the hair from her face. “But why does his voice sound like that?”

  “He’s trying to distort it electronically. Every call he’s made so far is like that.”

  Sally shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I can tell it’s him. That’s David Sikes I just heard.”

  Goldman looked at Joe McCarthy. “What do you think? Does the voice sound like David Sikes?”

  “At first I couldn’t tell, but I think my wife’s right.”

  “Have you two ever heard Sikes talk about a man by the name of Gabriel?”

  Joe looked puzzled. “Gabriel?” he asked.

  “Or refer to himself as Gabriel?”

  Sally shook her head and looked at her husband. “Never. Have you, Joe?”

  “No.” Joe answered. “Who’s Gabriel?”

  “It’s really not important,” Goldman told them.

  But it was important, very much so. Goldman’s multiple-personality theory was becoming more plausible.

  56

  THE MCCARTHYS WERE TOLD the importance of keeping quiet about Sikes. In fact, “remain tight-lipped” were the words Goldman used. He explained that they could be asked to give depositions and possibly testify in court. This seemed to make Joe a little jumpy.

  Goldman pointed toward the tape recorder. “This tape, along with your testimony, could be critical in the case,” he explained.

  “We understand,” Sally said.

  “But I need something else from you.”

  “What can we do?” Joe asked, as he checked his wrist watch.

  “There may be valuable evidence in your house,” explained Goldman. “Especially in the bedroom where Sikes stayed. So please don’t go in there. Forensics will need to go through your entire house.”

  “We haven’t touched a thing in that room, Mr. Goldman,” Sally said.

  “Good.”

  “Joe never goes in that room, and the last time I was in there was just before we left for Colorado. You know, straightening up things, making up the bed for David.”

  “Please don’t wash any dirty dishes or glasses that Sikes may have used either.”

  Sally showed her shiny-white, clenched teeth. “That may be a problem.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because there weren’t any dirty dishes when we returned.”

  “None?”

  “None. In fact, he not only left the kitchen sparkling, he cleaned the entire house, even vacuumed, and scrubbed the bathrooms.”

  Goldman rubbed his chin, then the side of his face. “Gave you the royal treatment, didn’t he?”

  “When we arrived at the house from the airport, he told us he’d cleaned the entire house, including his bedroom. He said it was his way of thanking us for letting him stay there. Imagine that, him thanking us?”

  “Yes, I can imagine it,” Goldman said.

  “Joe and I agreed he could stay there any time we went out of town.” Sally took a deep breath then let it out and lowered her head. “But not now.”

  The investigative wheels were turning, more like spinning. Goldman had a background check run on Sikes, put his apartment building in Frontenac on a twenty-four-hour stake out, and had Wilkerson working with the Brevard Sheriff’s forensic team scouring the McCarthy house. He was now a step ahead of Sikes. The possibility of an arrest made Goldman shiver with excitement. No matter how many of these cases he’d worked over the years, they all felt like the first. That is, the first one that led to an arrest.

  When Goldman was a rookie agent, he was rough, tough, and eager, but smart. He was destined for unparalleled success, but his first big case didn’t work out how he expected. An arrest was never made. The failure was a huge disappointment for the rookie, and it still haunted him. It was the Orange Coast Killer, the man who was never caught.

  In the late seventies, America experienced a rash of homicidal violence. It was almost as if there was a brotherhood of serial killers, competing across the country, from California to Texas to New York, and down to Florida. The Hillside Strangler, the Sunset Slayer, the Skid Row Slasher, the Freeway Killer, and others, practicing their trade, slaughtering innocent men, women, and children. But there was one that Goldman would never forget, the Orange Coast Killer, who had started his killing spree on August 2, 1977 in Corona Del Mar, California. His victim was a twenty-nine-year-old woman, raped and beat to death with a blunt instrument. He left no clues for the police. He waited eighteen months before killing again, on April Fools’ Day, 1979. Another woman was found raped and murdered in her Costa Mesa home. In the course of eight months following the Costa Mesa murder, five more women were slaughtered by the Orange Coast Killer. And then suddenly, for whatever reason, he stopped. It wasn’t a holiday for him. This time he quit for good.

  Retired.

  To this day, the killer was still at large.

  This was the case that drove Goldman’s success. He became obsessed with all subsequent cases. He vowed the bad guy would never elude him again.

  The Brevard County forensics team showed up at the McCarthy home around noon and worked until five. Todd Zeller, a five-year veteran, was the deputy in charge of the scene. The team combed every square inch of the house, concentrating on the guest bedroom where Sikes had stayed. The bed was stripped and the mattress and box springs lifted, then vacuumed. The dresser was pulled away from the wall, and a small, powerful, hand vac was used on the lime-green shag carpet underneath. A larger vacuum with a fresh bag was used on the rest of the carpet in the bedroom. When the bedroom was completed, a new bag was inserted and the living room was next, then the family room, until the entire house was vacuumed. Each room, one vacuum bag, each bag labeled.

  One of the forensic team members dusted for prints. They weren’t interested in David Sikes’s fingerprints, only those of Sara Ann Riley. Dried blood, dried semen, dried saliva, dried urine, hair, clothes fibers, fingerprints, skin. If something was there, they would find it.

  Late Wednesday evening Goldman’s hotel-room phone rang. He reached for the TV remote and muted Jenna Whitlock, the four-eyed, emaciated brunette on CNN.

  “Goldman.”

  “This is Detective Wilkerson.”

  “What do you have?”

  “The sheriff’s department called. They found some evidence that needs to be analyzed. I wanted to call you before we proceed any further.”

  “What’d they find?” />
  “Some blond hair from the carpet in the bedroom where the vacuum cleaner couldn’t reach.”

  “Hmm. Anything else?”

  “They found some pornography under the mattress of the bed. Mrs. McCarthy assured them it didn’t belong to her husband. There were fresh sheets on the bed. So they removed them and the mattress cover and found a few stains on the mattress. Said it looked like blood, but they weren’t sure.”

  “They take samples?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m interested in the hair samples right now.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “First get some of the Riley girl’s hair.”

  “From where?”

  “I asked the ME, Albright, to remove some when he performed the autopsy.”

  “There’s no one at the morgue at this hour.”

  “There will be. And I want the hair samples analyzed tonight.

  “Tonight? You serious?”

  “Damn right, I’m serious. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has a regional lab here in Orlando.”

  “I know. We’ve used it a couple of times.”

  Goldman palmed his thinning hair back tight on his skull. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll call Albright at home and have him meet you at the hospital.”

  “He’s going to be pissed.”

  “Let me worry about that. You type up the chain of custody paperwork then pick up the hair samples. After that, swing by the hospital and get the Riley girl’s hair from the good doctor.”

  “What time?”

  “I’ll let you know after I talk to Albright. I should also be able to give you a time to meet me at the FDLE lab.”

  “Think you can get someone there at this hour?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  “There’s something else,” Wilkerson said quickly.

  “What’s that?”

  “I ran a background on David Allen Sikes.”

  “And?”

  “He’s from Mississippi. Magee, Mississippi. Remember I told you a few days ago they found a dead girl there in ’89—”

  “And she had CXJ carved on her forehead,” Goldman blurted out.