Next Girl On The List - A serial killer thriller (McRyan Mystery Series Book)

by Roger Stelljes

  He shaved more time.

  “Ten minutes, fourteen seconds, Mac,” Dara reported, taking the last sip of what was left of her coffee as she sat casually on the back of her Range Rover, the tailgate lifted. “Now will you please tell me what the hell this is all about?”

  “You would agree I’m in good shape and a pretty athletic guy?” Mac asked.

  “Yes and yes,” she replied. “I didn’t need you to go through the tunnels to prove it though.”

  “So how long do you think it takes someone like Rubens to get through that tunnel?”

  Dara’s eyes narrowed, trying to figure out where Mac was going. “It would have taken him longer. From what I could tell from the video the other day, he is no speedster or athlete, certainly not like you or I. So that works against him. On the other hand, he’s shorter than you.”

  “He wouldn’t have had to crouch to the degree I did, especially in the tunnel before the T.”

  “Right, so that might narrow the gap a little, I suppose, but not nearly to the point of evening it out.” She thought for a moment and then shook her head. “It would have to take him longer than you. I bet by a minute, maybe two. Now why is that important?”

  “It’s all about timing, Dara. Let’s go back to last night. I roll up on the scene at 9:02—I know because I checked my watch as I ran up the front steps of the apartment building. I knew I was up against the clock. I raced upstairs into the apartment and found Eleanor there and checked her pulse. That took maybe two minutes, between checking on her and waiting for the paramedic.

  “So now it’s 9:05.

  “I step into the hallway, you arrive, more cops are arriving, and then the neighbor reports Rubens ran out the back door of the building. The neighbor thinks he did so maybe a minute or two at most before we arrived on the scene.

  “So he’s out the door at 9:01 according to the surveillance footage. If he had pre-opened the manhole cover, he was in that tunnel mere seconds later. If he had to open it, it’s more likely thirty or forty seconds later, so that would make it 9:02.”

  “Which is when you arrived, right?”

  “Right. I’m arriving in the front of the building at 9:02 and we rushed in.

  “Then Dara, you arrive, and it’s 9:05, maybe 9:06 now. Again, I know this because when I started running down the hallway toward the back steps is when I got the call from Rubens, which came in at 9:06:43.

  “So if he exits the building at 9:01 and gets down into that tunnel less than a minute later, he’s maybe four to five, maybe six to seven minutes ahead of us at best.”

  “Okay, so?” Dara asked.

  “When his call came to me, he’d then be where?”

  Wire’s eyes lit up, seeing where he was going. “In the tunnel. But he couldn’t call you from down there with no cell phone reception. We checked repeatedly and we were getting no signal in that tunnel. The timing must be off somehow.”

  “I wondered about that, which is why I wanted to run the tunnel this morning and time it. Dara, I don’t think we’re off. And even if we’re off a minute or two here, it still took me a good ten, if not eleven minutes to get through that sewer tunnel. I’m certain I moved quicker through those sewer pipes than Rubens.

  “Dara, he couldn’t call from the tunnel and he couldn’t have made it through in time to call me. It’s not possible.”

  “Soooo … you’re saying he’s not the one who called?”

  “Nope.”

  “So who did?”

  “I think Rubens has a partner.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Mac, who is Rubens?”

  Wire looked at him slacked jawed. “Partner? You think he has an accomplice? You think he’s working with someone?”

  “Not quite so loud,” Mac replied with a smile, looking around the alley.

  “Sorry, but you think he has a partner?”

  “Yes. Did you read the transcript of my call with Rubens last night?”

  “I did, so?”

  “What did he say about going on?”

  “He said we go on. He said … we. You think he meant…”

  “I figured he meant the game between you and me and him. I thought that’s what he meant by we. But what if he meant something else? What if there was a verbal slip? The call isn’t from the killer at the scene, it’s from the partner who’s distracting us from the chase. Maybe the partner isn’t always the one making the call. Or maybe better yet, it was a …”

  “Subtle clue,” Dara mused, finishing Mac’s thought.

  “Who knows,” Mac answered. “It’s another little wrinkle in the game. He’s seeing if we would catch it, pick up on it and figure it out.”

  “But Mac, a partner?” Dara exclaimed, still not quite believing what she was hearing. “For something as sick as this? Really?”

  “Think about it. How else can he be such a Houdini all the time?” Mac replied in a hushed tone. “How does he evade Walker in Los Angeles? His timing was a little like ours last night, not as tight but within minutes. How does he make a phone call from the sewer pipe where you can’t get cell service down there? How is it he never gets caught? He’s got help. He, is a we.”

  The look on Wire’s face was one of disbelief that was slowly evolving into comprehension.

  “It makes sense when you think about it,” Mac added, selling the theory. “And if I’m right, it changes things dramatically for the better.”

  “How do you figure? Doesn’t that double our problem? Isn’t that another person to look for? We’re no closer to finding the partner than we are to finding Rubens.”

  “On the contrary,” Mac answered. “Now that I know he has a partner I think I know who Rubens is—or at least who one of the people that make up Rubens is.”

  “You …know…who Rubens is? Who?”

  “Let’s go back to my place.”

  Ten minutes later, they were up in Mac’s attic office and he was digging through his home file on Rubens, the initial paper copy that Grace Delmonico had given him.

  “Mac, who is Rubens?” Wire demanded, the suspense killing her.

  “Just one more second,” Mac delayed, digging through brown expandable files. “Here it is.” He held up a folder marked Boston. “So, do you remember back in Boston they arrested a guy, a medical examiner? He had a tie to victim number one and they had him on surveillance video within a block or two of the second victim.”

  “Sure, I remember spending a minute on that as background information. But Mac, they released him.”

  “They did so because he was in custody when the third victim was murdered and under surveillance when the fourth victim was murdered.”

  “Right, so he didn’t do it.”

  “But Dara, if he had a sidekick, doesn’t that scenario play a little differently?”

  “So you’re thinking the partner killed the third and fourth victims?”

  “The pieces fit. While the last two victims were staged as Rubens likes to do, the clock and clues were left and those were new, so that’s different. Those were an add-on, along with a taunt, a message which all served as a diversion away from the man they had in custody.”

  “And the method was a little different too,” Dara added, giving the file a look.

  “That’s right—that’s what I was thinking as well as I ran through that sewer tunnel a second time, giving this theory of mine more analysis. In most of Rubens’ murders, the victims were drugged and then strangled.”

  “But not those last two victims in Boston. They were not killed as cleanly as the others,” Dara observed. “The third woman was killed with a baseball bat and the fourth with knitting needles—one stuffed in the victim’s ear and the other through her right eye.”

  “So those two cases feel different when you look back on it now, don’t they?” Mac asked as he rummaged through another file.

  “They do,” Dara agreed. “It’s as if someone else killed the first two with one method and someone different with a more br
utal method took care of the second two victims. The similarity is they’re Rubenesque women who were staged like Rubens paintings.”

  “Ah, found it,” Mac exclaimed as he pulled out a picture and handed it to Dara. It was a mugshot of the man the Boston police arrested ten years ago. “What do you think?”

  The photo is of a man in his mid-thirties with dark black hair. There was no facial hair although he did have a five o’clock shadow that made Mac think of Richard Nixon. The man had a bulbous nose and his right nostril looked a little bigger than the left.

  Dara set the photo down in the midst of the sketches and surveillance photos they had developed of Rubens over the past couple of days. She studied the pictures for a minute and the similarities were evident. She looked up to Mac with a small smile. “It’s possible. You could continue to have sketch artists refine what we have with this photo.” She looked back down at the photo array and then back up to Mac again. “What was the medical examiner’s name?”

  “Munger,” Mac replied. “Dr. Maynard Munger.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Like all good stories, you have to start at the beginning.”

  Mac and Wire slid their way quietly into the FBI field office, found Delmonico in her office and discreetly picked her up on their way to Galloway’s. Inside Galloway’s office, without saying a word, Mac shut the door and along with Wire pulled closed all of the blinds covering the interior office windows.

  “What’s with all the cloak and dagger?” Galloway inquired with his tie askew, the top button of his dress shirt undone and tufts of his hair jutting out in various directions. The senior agent was working on his third cup of coffee with two other cold half-finished cups sitting amongst the piles of paper on his desk. Then he took quick notice of the sudden liveliness of McRyan and Wire’s body language and the excited looks on their faces. “What do you have?” he asked.

  “We’ve been doing a little sleuthing on our own this morning,” Mac stated.

  “And we figured something out,” Wire added.

  “Which is?” Galloway inquired, sitting back in his chair, arms folded.

  “That Rubens has a partner,” Mac answered.

  “What?” Delmonico breathed in disbelief.

  “A partner?” Galloway huffed.

  “Yes, and from that, we think one-half of Rubens is named Maynard Munger.”

  “Munger? Munger?” Delmonico asked, trying to place the name. “Wait a second. Wasn’t he the guy Boston arrested ten years ago?”

  “Indeed,” Mac confirmed.

  “Perhaps you should start from the beginning,” Galloway instructed, sitting back with his arms folded. “How do you get there?”

  Mac explained what he and Wire had been up to the last few hours. “No way Rubens makes that call last night—no way. Not possible because he’s in that sewer tunnel. He had help, someone to call and distract us.”

  “And told you we go on,” Delmonico clarified skeptically. “So you hear that and figure there’s a partner?”

  “I’ll admit maybe that’s a logical leap on my part,” Mac replied, conceding the point slightly. “Maybe I’m hearing something that isn’t there. Except I keep going back to the fact that there is no way that Rubens made the call from that sewer pipe. Not with a cheap burner phone. It didn’t happen. He has a partner.”

  “And this person…what?” Galloway asked. “Killed the third and fourth victims in Boston?”

  “Yes!” Mac and Wire called out together.

  “So it begs the question,” Mac asked. “Where is Dr. Maynard Munger?”

  “Dead,” Delmonico replied, looking up from her laptop. “Maynard Munger is dead.”

  “What?” Wire yelped, suddenly crushed, looking to Mac in shock.

  Mac was not surprised. “Of course he’s dead. What I’m curious about is how and when?”

  “I’m reading from a story in the Boston Globe,” Delmonico answered. “About four months after he was arrested he was on a sailing trip in the Atlantic.”

  “A sailing trip?” Wire asked.

  “That’s what it says,” Grace answered. “A few days after he set sail on his own, Hurricane Ernesto took a more northerly track, although by the time it got farther north it was downgraded to a tropical storm. After the storm passed, Munger’s sailboat was found capsized in the Atlantic south of Long Island. They found the sailboat but no sign of the body.”

  “That’s one way to do it,” Mac replied.

  “You’re not the least bit surprised, are you?” Wire asked Mac, shaking her head at her own sidekick’s ability to see three steps ahead.

  “No. Think about it. What better way to disappear than to make everyone think you’re dead?”

  “Let me get this straight,” Galloway asked, holding his hands up, still a skeptic. “You’re saying that Munger faked his death by capsizing his sailboat in the Atlantic so that he then could come back four years later and murder women in Chicago? Have you two had enough sleep?” he asked incredulously. “That’s crazy.”

  Mac laughed and reached into his pocket and handed a folded ten-dollar bill to Wire. “You were right.”

  “I told you,” Wire replied with a proud smile, waving the bill in her fingers.

  “What?” Galloway barked, now holding his arms out.

  “I bet ten dollars you wouldn’t think this was crazy. Dara said you would. She was right.”

  “Well, it is,” Galloway snorted. “It’s damn crazy.”

  “Is it?” Mac shot back, undeterred. “He disappears for three to four years every time, so why would the first time have been any different? Besides, if he doesn’t disappear, every time Rubens came back people would look at Maynard Munger. Or his name would come up and he would be in the spotlight. If he’s in Chicago or Los Angeles while Rubens is operating? He’d instantly be a suspect.”

  “Instead,” Wire added, picking up the train of thought, “for the last ten years he’s been a mere footnote in books, long forgotten, doing this right under everyone’s nose.”

  “And he’s been doing it with help,” Mac finished. “It’s the only way he can call me and be in that damn sewer tunnel at the same time. For all intents and purposes, Rubens is not one person, but two.”

  “Okay,” Galloway began, the level of skepticism in his tone receding. “Let’s just assume for a second that what the two of you say is true. What do you propose to do?”

  “Wire and I are going to go to Boston and look into this.”

  “Hold on,” Delmonico interrupted. “We have a little more than thirty hours and you think that the best investigative approach is to go to Boston?”

  “Rubens didn’t leave a clue behind to work with,” Mac answered. “He said we’ll have to find him, there will be no clue as to the victim. Well, here all that is left is to keep pushing the pictures, keep encouraging women to call and to keep working the neighborhood around Eagleson’s condo to see if anything pops. You don’t need us for that. Lincoln Coolidge, his men and the Bureau are already doing that.”

  “So you’re going to Boston to see if you can find the trail for Munger?” Delmonico asked.

  “That’s the plan,” Mac answered. “And given the sensitive nature of this, not a word about it to anyone around here, either of you. Not a single soul other than the two of you is to know about this.”

  “At least not until we lock this down a little more,” Galloway agreed.

  “Right,” Mac replied and then to Delmonico said, “Grace, I need everything you can find on Munger but again, keep this close. Not a word to anyone else in the investigation, including Coolidge, April Greene, anyone. For now, this stays among the four of us and that’s it.”

  “Even Coolidge?”

  “I hate to lock Linc out but he likes talking to the reporters and to just talk in general. It’s his affable nature.”

  “What do you need for Boston?” Galloway asked.

  “A plane to take us up there and wait for us,” Mac answered, pacin
g the floor of Galloway’s office. “The other thing I want is Gavin Sullivan, the retired detective who had the Rubens case, to meet us at the airport and for you to give the chief a call up there and make whatever we need available to us. Again, he needs to keep it on the down low. We have time yet. If we’re right about Munger, I don’t want to spook him. If we’re right about a partner, I don’t want to spook whoever that is either. This is our last chance to nail their asses before they go back into hiding again for three or four years.”

  “I’ll get the plane ready and take care of that, but Mac, what do you think you can find in Boston?” Galloway pressed. “It’s been ten years and you’ve got little time to work with.”

  “Like all good stories you have to start at the beginning. Boston is where it started. In the meantime, get everything you can on Munger—I mean back to the day he was born, where he went to elementary school, who he took to prom, his college professors, medical school classmates, jobs, friends, pets, anyone who ever crossed paths with him. Being a partner in an enterprise like this doesn’t happen with someone you don’t know. You don’t walk along the street and find this person. This is someone you know somehow, that he had some sort of relationship with at some point in his past. That’s where we’ll find that person.”

  • • •

  “…Yes, my flight gets into town at 1:30 P.M. tomorrow… Yes, I am so looking forward to getting back to town. A month is just too long to be away… I can’t wait to see it as well, and you. I’ve missed you. It is going to be fantastic. See you tomorrow.” Rubens hung up the phone, a satisfied smile on his face.

  “So, Maynard, she’s set?”

  “Yes, enthusiastically so,” Rubens answered and then snapped angrily, “and don’t call me Maynard. I always hated that name.”

  “Sorry. Your name changes so often I can’t keep track. It’s the one I can remember. However, as for your date tomorrow, you’re sure she’s ready to go?”

  “I am,” Rubens replied edgily. “I don’t like how you’re questioning me.”

  “Come on, can you blame me after last night?”

  “Last night was not my fault! I didn’t choose that location!” Munger shouted and then pointed out, “You did. That was your idea, not mine. I told you it could be problematic.”