The Queen pbf-5

by Steven James

  The sun edged toward the bottom of the sky, lengthening the late-day shadows around us. Nearby, Torres’s snipers waited for his go-ahead to take up position before twilight swallowed the park.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Once again I directed my gaze at the yellow single-wide trailer where we believed Reiser was staying. “Still no movement.”

  “His car is there.”

  “Yes.” An eyewitness had seen Reiser enter the trailer last night. I didn’t need to tell Anton that. We’d gone over all this earlier.

  I handed him the binoculars, and while he studied the trailer I surveyed the area, noting entrance and exit routes and evaluating their relationship to the roads that wandered through this part of the county.

  “All right.” Torres set down the binoculars. “What are you thinking?”

  “I see four possible exit routes.” I gestured toward the west end of the park. “There, near the quarry, but if we put Saunders and Haley on the ridge, they’ll have that one covered; the main entrance, one sniper can take that. There’s a break in the metal fence to the south, but it looks like Reiser would need to cross the field behind his trailer to get there, so, unlikely.” I pointed to the east. “I’d say that based on the layout of the park, if he rabbits he’ll most likely head south, past that home-”

  “With the snow angels.”

  “Yes.”

  Torres’s jaw was set. “Kids are easier to handle than adults.”

  “And Reiser is experienced. He’ll know it’s a lot harder for snipers to take a shot if they see a child in the scope along with the target.”

  “They’ll hesitate.”

  I nodded.

  He studied the park. “I’m telling you, Pat, you have an instinct for this. You should’ve been SWAT instead of all this theoretical geospatial bull-” He cut himself off mid-curse, no doubt realizing that he was inadvertently turning his compliment into an insult. He corrected himself: “I’m just saying.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  Actually, the FBI’s SWAT program wouldn’t have been a bad choice, but I was born to work for the Bureau’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, or NCAVC, and the last ten years had been a perfect fit for me.

  “I’ll go in first,” I said.

  He shook his head. “The director was clear. She wanted us to send in SWAT before you or Jake access the trailer.”

  “That’s not the way to play this.” This was not the only thing I disagreed with the director on. “People react in kind. When they feel threatened, they respond accordingly. You go in heavy, he’s going to respond to meet the threat. I can talk him out.” My experience as a field agent and as a homicide detective before that gave me street cred with Torres, and he didn’t argue with me, just took a moment to peer through the binocs again. “Those are trailer homes,” I added. “A shoot-out would mean-”

  “Yeah. Rounds flying through the walls,” he said grimly.

  While he considered what I’d said, Agent Jake Vanderveld, the NCAVC profiler who was working this case with me, sauntered toward us. Broad shoulders. Blond hair. Meticulously trimmed mustache. I was thirty-seven, he was a few years younger. He nodded a greeting and slapped Torres on the shoulder.

  “Where’re we at?” Jake asked.

  “Still deciding.” Torres lowered the binoculars.

  “Play it safe, Anton,” I said. “Have people in place, but then-”

  He made his decision, shook his head. “No. I’m not comfortable with it. I want my men in there first. You can follow close, right after the team, but I want to secure the premises first.”

  “Hang on,” Jake spoke up, a little too authoritatively. “This is all a game to Reiser. He’ll want to taunt Pat.” Jake had helped lead us here and knew Reiser’s file better than almost anyone. “If we send in a man in civilian clothes, Reiser’ll think he has the upper hand. Play to his weakness, his arrogance, and you’ll get close.”

  It was unusual for me and Jake to agree about anything, but apparently this time we were on the same wavelength.

  Torres worked his jaw back and forth for a moment, then let out a small sigh. “All right. Listen. I go in with you, Pat. But I enter the trailer first.”

  “Plainclothes?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “Agreed.” I stood. “And Travis Reiser might be the only key to finding Basque, so tell your team minimum force. We need to take him alive.”

  “That’s not the priority here.”

  Basque had eluded us for six months now, and if we were right about Reiser, he might flip on Basque, turn him in. “Keep him alive, Anton.”

  “If this little prick takes any aggressive action, we’re dropping him.”

  Though I wanted more reassurance that the SWAT team would hold off from taking Reiser down, they’d been trained, as I had, to fire at a target until it’s no longer a threat. That wasn’t the outcome I was looking for, but I knew Torres was right. You don’t take chances, especially with someone like Reiser.

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  We all quieted our cells, one of the SWAT guys distributed radios to us, small, nearly invisible patches you wear just behind your ear, and while Torres changed into civilian clothes, I went to get some body armor.

  2

  Torres by my side.

  Reiser’s pale yellow trailer sixty meters ahead of us.

  The air-crisp, bitingly cold.

  We knew if we pulled our guns at this point it would increase our perceived threat level, so we kept them holstered as we walked, as we scanned the area. “So, you asked her yet?” Torres said, keeping his voice low.

  “Asked her?”

  “Lien-hua.”

  I glanced his way. “Who told you about that?”

  “Little birdie.”

  “Ralph.”

  “Okay, a big birdie.”

  I went back to scrutinizing the park. “If you must know. I’m waiting for the right time.”

  “The right time.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m telling you, don’t be nervous, bro. You’ll do fine.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “Mm-hmm.” He crunched along the road beside me, sturdy, confident but not brash. I realized I was glad he was with me. “Just don’t put it off too long. You only live once, you know.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Forty meters to Reiser’s trailer.

  Though I didn’t want to, I eased aside thoughts of Lien-hua and carefully observed the park.

  Despite the weather, several small faces were staring at me through the torn screen door of the trailer home that lay directly across the road. Abruptly, a woman pulled the children back into the shadows and swung the screen door, then the trailer door shut.

  I didn’t like this.

  Any of it.

  The trailer park brought back a swarm of dark memories from a crime scene fourteen years ago when I was a Milwaukee police detective and was forced to view the kinds of things no one should ever have to see: the body of Jasmine Luecke in her trailer home-or more precisely, what was left of her body, laid out gruesomely in the hallway.

  The aftermath of one of Richard Devin Basque’s crimes.

  There were sixteen victims that we knew of. All young women. He kept them alive for as long as twelve hours while he surgically removed their lungs piece by piece and ate them, making the dying women watch as he did.

  When I finally cornered him in an abandoned slaughterhouse in Milwaukee, he was holding his scalpel over his final victim, Sylvia Padilla. She was still alive when I arrived. Which, even after all these years, made the memory even more troubling.

  Thirty meters.

  I hadn’t been able to save her-I doubted anyone could have-but I did manage to apprehend Basque, and he was eventually convicted, sent to prison, and spent thirteen years behind bars, most of it in solitary confinement.

  But then, just over a year ago, the Seventh Distri
ct Court announced Basque was going to receive a retrial after “a careful review of the culpatory DNA evidence and eyewitness testimony pertinent to the case.”

  And unbelievably, at the conclusion of his retrial last May, he was found not guilty and released from prison with official apologies from the judge, the warden, and even the governor.

  Less than a month later, Basque started killing again.

  This time with an accomplice.

  Fifteen meters to the trailer.

  Upon review of the digitized case files, Jake discovered that DNA found at the scene of the June homicide matched previously unidentified DNA at four of Basque’s earlier crimes, and that’s what led us to Travis Reiser.

  I was forced to concede that Basque might have had an accomplice all along.

  Since June I’d linked three other murders to Basque and Reiser, and if they really had been working together from the start, I couldn’t help but wonder how many other crimes Reiser might have committed by himself in the years since Basque’s arrest and initial conviction.

  “Listen,” I said into my mic. “This man can lead us to Basque. Be prudent. Don’t get trigger happy.”

  In the silence following my words, Torres reiterated, “You heard him. Wait for my signal.”

  The team confirmed over the radios that they understood, and Torres and I arrived at Travis Reiser’s jaundice-colored trailer. “Puke yellow,” Torres muttered. “How appropriate.”

  We took the steps up to the front door slowly, but my heart was racing.

  My friend Ralph Hawkins-an ex-Army Ranger who now headed up the NCAVC, and apparently the guy who’d mentioned my engagement plans to Torres-once told me that fear was one of the key ingredients to courage. “If your life’s in danger and you’re not afraid,” he said, “you’re just a freakin’ moron, and you’re a liability.”

  Right now I was not a liability.

  I knocked. “Travis, are you home?”

  No answer.

  “Mr. Reiser,” I said. “Please open the door.”

  Still no reply. No movement inside the trailer.

  A nod from Torres and we drew our weapons. He carried a Glock 23, I unholstered the. 357 SIG P229 I’ve carried with me ever since starting in law enforcement fifteen years ago. Reliable. Accurate. An old friend. It felt at home in my hand.

  I tried the doorknob. Locked.

  We had a warrant to search the premises, but if you break down a door, you run the risk of contaminating evidence or inciting adversarial action, so it’s always better to find an alternative. However, in this case, that wasn’t going to happen. I signaled for Torres to move aside, then positioned myself in front of the doorway.

  I kicked the door hard, holding nothing back, planting my heel directly next to the lock. It blistered apart, the door flew open, and Torres whipped through the entrance. I followed closely on his heels.

  The living room was dark, lit only by the muted daylight that managed to seep through the heavy curtains drawn across every window. The trailer smelled of mold, of cigarette smoke, of stale beer.

  No sign of Reiser.

  Torres hooked left toward the bathroom, I moved right, down the short hallway to the bedroom.

  The door was closed.

  “Travis?” Gun ready, heart racing, I pressed it open.

  The room was strewn with dirty clothes and discarded Michelob cans. A mattress lay flopped on the floor, covered with a crumpled mess of sheets and blankets. An old TV sat on a wooden crate in the far corner. To the left, a small dresser was pressed against the wall near the closet, which I now approached.

  I raised my SIG just below eye level. High ready position.

  Opened the closet door.

  Clothes, shoes, boxes. That was all.

  I let out a small breath then looked around the room one more time. Nothing.

  He wasn’t here.

  Just moments ago, I’d been amped with anticipation, but now I felt the all-too-familiar plummet of disappointment that comes from running into an investigative dead end. Highs and lows. The roller-coaster ride of hot adrenaline and cold letdown. Story of my life.

  When I returned to the kitchen I found Torres waiting for me.

  “Place is empty, Pat.”

  “Right.”

  Dirty dishes filled the sink. Beside them I noticed a wooden block bristling with knives. Basque and Reiser typically chose scalpels and knives rather than guns, and I tried not to consider the grisly thought that these blades had been used for something other than cutting vegetables or fruit here in the kitchen. The Bureau’s Evidence Response Team would find out. “Have your team check the rest of the park,” I told Torres.

  Based on what I knew about Basque and Reiser, it would’ve been unlikely for Travis to bring a body back to his home, but still, I found myself carefully sniffing the musty air. I caught no hint of the odor of human decomposition.

  It wasn’t my job to process evidence, the ERT would do that, but I didn’t want to contaminate anything before they arrived. I holstered my SIG, turned on my phone, and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Then I went to the ashtray beside the couch and inspected the burnt ends of the butts. All cold.

  Torres spoke into his mic. “Sweep the rest of the park. Cordon it off. You know how much is riding on getting this right. No mistakes.”

  Then he called in for local PD to send marked cars to the roads leading from the park.

  I studied the room. Cheap cabinets, a Formica kitchen table, countertops strewn with unopened mail-two bills, a paycheck from the factory, two credit card offers. The most recent postage was stamped on Tuesday.

  Yet he entered the trailer last night.

  According to the eyewitness.

  Something to follow up on.

  Just as I started looking through the bathroom cabinet, my phone rang. This cell was a temporary replacement for a prototype of a new smart phone the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency had been letting me use. Last week I hadn’t been quite gentle enough when I slammed it onto my kitchen table after a rather big setback on a case. So now, for the time being, I was left without my 3-D hologram projector for mapping crime scene locations. I don’t have a very good history with phones. Hopefully I’ve learned my lesson.

  Probably not.

  When I checked the screen I saw that FBI Director Margaret Wellington was on the other end of the line.

  Oh, this day was just getting better and better.

  3

  I let the phone ring.

  Six years ago when Margaret and I were both on staff at the Academy I’d noticed some discrepancies in a case and, not knowing who was responsible, I’d brought it up to the Office of Professional Responsibility. After an inquiry, she was discreetly transferred to a North Carolina satellite office-not a career move in the right direction for her-and she’d blamed me for it. But then, a little over a year ago, after landing back in the good graces of the administration, she rose quickly through the ranks, looking for a reason to fire me every step of the way.

  It rang again.

  Last summer, Margaret’s predecessor, Gregory Rodale, found himself caught in the middle of an insider trading scandal. Shrewdly, Margaret, then the Executive Assistant Director, had positioned herself to be on the short list for the director position even before he was asked to resign.

  The approval process in the Senate went astonishingly smoothly, and now a woman I’d never gotten along with and never really trusted was at the helm of the most powerful law enforcement and domestic counterterrorism agency in the world.

  Mid-ring, I finally answered. “Pat here.”

  She bypassed a greeting, got right down to business. “What do we know about Reiser?”

  “He’s not here, but his car is parked outside. We’re working from the premise that he’s not far. Torres and the team are searching trailer by trailer.”

  “All right.” She didn’t sound dismissive, just perfunctory. “In the meantime, there’s another matter to attend to. T
here’s been an accident not far from you. I need you to have a look around.”

  “What accident?”

  “An ice fisherman found snowmobile tracks leading to a stretch of open water. Law enforcement didn’t find any footprints to or from the break in the ice. Whoever was driving the snowmobile went down.”

  “Where?”

  “Tomahawk Lake. Just outside of Woodborough.”

  A chill swept over me. That was only fifteen miles from my brother Sean’s home in Elk Ridge.

  He’s a snowmobiler.

  The moment went deeper. “Who? Do we have a name?”

  “It’s not Sean, Pat. Don’t worry.”

  Her words caught me by surprise. I couldn’t remember ever mentioning Sean’s name to Margaret, or even indicating to her that I had a brother, so unless she’d been reviewing my personnel files I was at a loss as to how she made the connection so quickly.

  A random snowmobile accident would be an issue for local law enforcement to look into, not something for the FBI to investigate. Also, here was the Bureau’s director rather than my direct supervisor on the line. There had to be more or she never would have called me. “What else?”

  “A rather astute young deputy took pictures of the tracks and emailed them to the FBI Lab. We identified the type of snowmobile-a Ski-Doo 800 XL-and that led us back to the owner. Forty minutes ago the sheriff’s department found the man’s wife and daughter at the house. Both dead. The woman shot in the back. The girl in the chest.”

  My brother didn’t have a daughter, so the dead woman wouldn’t have been his wife Amber, but still I sank onto one of the chairs in Reiser’s trailer. “What are their names?”

  “I assure you, Patrick, this has nothing to do with Sean.”

  “Margaret, what are their names?”

  A small pause. “The missing man is named Donnie Pickron. His wife is Ardis. Their four-year-old girl’s name is Lizzie.”

  I felt a deep stab of pain. Knowing their names made the crime all the more real, and hearing Lizzie’s age was almost unbearable.

  I tried to process Margaret’s words. It seemed highly unusual for a sheriff’s deputy to call on the FBI in the first place, and even more unusual to ask for their help with something like this right off the bat. “Margaret, I’m not sure I see what this has to do with the Bureau.”