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

by Roger Stelljes

  “She isn’t dead yet,” Wire scolded.

  “Well, she’s not but—”

  “And number three almost didn’t die, Mac. We were close.”

  “Close is irrelevant,” Mac replied and raised his drink slowly to his mouth, stopped and then threw the whole thing back, grimacing as the bourbon went down and held his glass up for another drink. After the waitress left he said, “I just keep thinking we’re onto something here. Maybe it’s hoping.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, after tonight I’m more convinced than ever that your theory he’s alive has legs.”

  “Why?”

  “Too much about Maynard Munger, whether it’s his background or his behavior fits for the first two murders here in Boston. Think about it, Mac. Munger was a medical examiner, so he’d understand evidence collection, not to mention what might be found during the autopsy. He’s extremely intelligent. Shit, he did his residency at Mass General, maybe the best hospital in the country. And talking to Sullivan tonight, speaking with him, I came to the conclusion that he was a solid detective. You can see it in his eyes, Mac. After tonight, working with us, he knows he had the killer in his hands, across the table from him. He had him and he got away. Sullivan knows Munger killed those two women. His belief in that has me convinced.” Wire took another drink. “How about you?”

  Mac nodded. “I believed coming up here Munger was the guy and Sullivan said nothing tonight to make me think otherwise.”

  “So tomorrow do we go with Munger?”

  “I don’t know,” Mac answered, swirling his drink in his hand. “Despite what you and I believe, take a step back and think for a minute about how that sounds. Our theory is that the murderer is a supposedly dead medical examiner from Boston who was in police custody when the third victim was killed and under intense police surveillance when the fourth victim was murdered. The proof of an accomplice is my hunch about the timing of that phone call and maybe the use of the word ‘we.’ I think we’re right about the timing on that but it is possible we could be wrong. Now, I don’t think so, but it’s speculation on our part. And you want speculation? This whole ‘we’ theory from the phone call is a massive reach. Now, conversely, Maynard Munger disappeared at sea and that’s what could have actually happened. There is no evidence he survived, none. There was a tropical storm that would have tossed his sailboat around like a toy boat in the bathtub and we’re saying he either lived through it or was off the boat before the storm hit but again, what evidence do we have? It’s a story even your boyfriend Ridge wouldn’t dare make up.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Ahh, but you’ve slept with him, haven’t you? I mean, why else would it have taken you nearly an hour to get to Eleanor Eagleson’s this morning?”

  Wire’s jaw dropped just a bit with an incredulous look but she recovered quickly. “What business is that of yours?”

  “None,” Mac replied lightly with a wiseass grin and then his mood immediately turned dark again as he veered back to the topic of Munger. “It’s just that our whole theory sounds desperate.”

  “It could sound that way but I don’t believe that and neither do you,” Dara replied. “And I don’t give a rip how it sounds, I really don’t. I say we go with it and we live with the consequences.”

  “Fuck it.”

  “Hell yes. If we’re right, maybe you spook him away, maybe he pulls up if he hasn’t already. Or maybe you force him into a mistake. Better yet, someone identifies him for us. If we’re wrong, we’re wrong. If we lose a little face in the process, so what? I can live with that and so can you.”

  Mac nodded and took one last sip of his drink. “Munger’s old boss will be back here in Boston in the morning. Let’s meet with him and then get back to DC. Maybe we get lucky.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “We don’t have time for a lot of bureaucratic bullshit on this.”

  Maynard Munger stood in front of the small mirror and began to assemble the look for Gabriel, the former logger, now sport fisherman and art lover. He started with the large, full, bushy beard, the kind that oddly seemed to be in style. It wasn’t a long “Duck Dynasty” beard, more of just a full, unkempt one. It was the kind he was seeing with a number of professional athletes and just working people in general. It was a passing fad, he thought, but it worked for the here and now. With the beard secured on with a healthy dose of face glue, he slipped on the wig of long blond hair. Sometimes he’d put it into a ponytail, and other times he let it simply fall to his shoulders.

  It was a look tailored specifically for Glenda.

  He researched Glenda, had sat at the next booth over listening in as she spoke with two work colleagues and heard of her thing about men with blond hair and beards. There were lots of men like that back in her hometown of Duluth, Minnesota. She liked guys in flannel shirts and jeans who were men of the land. “I can’t stand ties,” he remembered hearing her say. “Give me a man who works with his hands.”

  And Glenda had some history with men. She’d been married briefly ten years ago and unlike most of the women he pursued, she’d been with many men. She said it to her friends, she said it to him, and he believed it. She was the first victim or potential target he’d ever slept with; a date he’d let get out of control. Glenda basically jumped him. But as a result, he knew she was getting too close for his comfort, especially with his plan coming to the point where it was time to start.

  He needed time away from her so, as far as she knew, he’d been gone on a long business and fishing trip. He’d kept in phone contact the whole time, calling not daily, but certainly every few days because he knew this time would be coming.

  As he worked his disguise, he thought of Glenda. Her voluptuous appearance was a little more recent of a development. Facebook photos from the not too distant past revealed a slimmer look. She walked with a slight limp and she complained a few times about a balky right knee. He suspected the knee hampered her ability to stay as active as she would have liked and that had led to some weight gain. Even now, she wasn’t really perfect for him. Glenda was a little slim for it, but she was close enough. She was close enough to the ideal for him but, conveniently, she was not close enough that she would actually think of herself in that fashion.

  At one point in her life, Glenda ran an art gallery in Duluth, a small city of 85,000 in northeastern Minnesota that rested on the far southwestern shores of Lake Superior.

  She loved art, sculptors and especially painters and had a particular passion for Cezanne. It was what animated her and made her alive and, as he’d found out that one night, amorous. And quite conveniently, there was an exhibit opening at the National Gallery of Art today featuring some of Cezanne’s finer work.

  It was the perfect place for them to reunite after his long time away.

  • • •

  A little before 9:00 A.M., Colin Sullivan turned right off of Albany Street and into the parking lot for the Office-Chief Medical Examiner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

  “Detective Sullivan, it’s been awhile,” Dr. Reginald Wayne, Chief Medical Examiner, greeted Sullivan as he entered the office.

  “It’s good to see you, Doc,” Sullivan answered and then introduced Mac and Wire.

  “I’ve seen the news accounts of your exploits chasing that killer. I’m sure you’ve heard of our experiences with that man from Colin here. Now Colin called me yesterday to make sure I would be in here this morning to talk about Rubens and said you also wanted to discuss Maynard Munger.”

  “That’s right,” Mac confirmed.

  “He was cleared of the murders, as I recall,” Dr. Wayne replied. “And he is dead so what could he, and for that matter, I have to do with this?”

  “That’s the thing, Dr. Wayne, we don’t think he is dead,” Mac replied. “I think there is a chance, an extremely good chance, that he is very much alive. We think he is in fact the killer people know as Rubens, and we think he has an accomplice.”

  �
�A partner?” Dr. Wayne replied, his mouth agape, looking to Sullivan for confirmation. “Colin, is this true?”

  “I think based on my discussions with Agents McRyan and Wire that it is possible Munger is alive and has an accomplice. It explains a number of things, especially how he was so perfect for the first two murders and yet didn’t commit the last two ten years ago. Having a friend helping him explains how that could have happened.”

  Mac spent a few minutes walking Dr. Wayne through the theory. “We think there is no way he could have made that call and been in that sewer tunnel.”

  “So we think he had a partner,” Wire added.

  “And that got me back to Munger,” Mac finished.

  “I understand,” Dr. Wayne replied. “But how can I help?”

  “We’re trying to get a handle on Munger, what he did, what his job was, where he went and who his partner was and how he came to meet that person. It all started here in Boston and this is where he worked and obviously what he did as a medical examiner is integral to what he became. So if he has an accomplice, it could have been someone he met here in Boston and perhaps someone he knew on the job here.”

  “So can you tell us about what he did here, Doctor?” Wire asked.

  “He was a medical examiner,” Dr. Wayne replied, “an exceedingly good one who took a particularly keen interest in his cases. He worked out of this office here in Boston and the surrounding area. We get many interesting cases.”

  “What were his duties?” Wire inquired.

  “He performed the typical duties of a medical examiner, Agent Wire. He would start at the murder scene and then would return here with the body. He would conduct his examination and determine cause of death. I, myself, like to dictate my reports but as I recall, Maynard liked to type his so he would often dictate his notes but then type his reports. I’m sure as Detective Sullivan will attest, Dr. Munger was very thorough. His reports were well written, insightful and proved quite invaluable as cases proceeded.”

  “Where would Dr. Munger type his reports?” Mac asked.

  “On his office computer.”

  “Where was that?”

  Dr. Wayne waved for them to follow him to an office down the hall. “Maynard had this office back when he worked for me. The examination room is across the hall, so he would conduct his examination in there and then come into his office here to complete his reports.”

  “Besides his own cases, what else would he have access to?” Mac asked and suddenly a thought came to his mind.

  “With his access, certainly any other case on our system,” Dr. Wayne answered. “As would any of my other examiners. Why do you ask?”

  “What are you thinking, Mac?” Wire queried. She had noticed the change in his expression.

  “In a second,” he replied. “Dr. Wayne, would the system have identification for the decedents?”

  “It would.”

  “And that identification information would include date of birth, would it not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And social security numbers?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “How about driver’s license information?”

  “If the person had that with them, it would have been procedure to collect and enter that information.”

  “Mac, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Wire asks.

  “Yeah, that’s the answer to how he goes around undetected.”

  “Undetected?” Dr. Wayne asked. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “Dr. Wayne, one question we’ve had is how our killer moved from city to city without detection. We surmised that he was using different identities as he moved around. I’m suddenly thinking his position as a medical examiner would have been ideal to steal identities. He undoubtedly would know that the FBI and local police would look for patterns in names and people who relocated.”

  “But,” Wire started, “if you have numerous pieces of identification you can simply move from state to state, no issue, using a new identity or identities each time. How long again was it after his arrest and release until he disappeared?”

  “Four months,” Dr. Wayne answered. “He resigned, and a month or two later is when we heard he’d been lost at sea.”

  “Was it he resigned, or was it he resigned before he was going to be fired?” Wire inquired.

  “No, he truly resigned,” Dr. Wayne replied. “Maynard said he couldn’t take the looks, the suspicion. He said people looked at him like he was a pervert.”

  “Did they?”

  Dr. Wayne shrugged. “He wasn’t exactly wrong about that but given all that had happened it wasn’t that surprising. I thought it best that he move on and I was quite relieved that he saved me the ordeal of having to terminate his services. He told me he planned to take a job down in Miami. I did in fact provide a reference for him as my opposite number down there had some concerns about his involvement in the Rubens matter. I explained that Maynard had been cleared and that while a bit quirky he was eminently qualified and really quite good. As I understand it, he was sailing his boat down there when he disappeared.”

  “So in those four months, he’s planning his disappearance and he starts collecting identities,” Mac speculated and then looked to Wire. “God, why didn’t this occur to me yesterday? He was in an ideal position to determine which identities to steal. He had access to everything so he could determine whether use of that identity would be detected. He would know if the decedent was homeless, a drug addict, or someone with little or no family so that the use of the identity wouldn’t be detected.”

  “So now what are you going to do?” Sullivan asked.

  “How long did Munger work for you, Dr. Wayne?” Mac asked.

  Wayne opened the personnel file for Munger that was on his desk. “He was one of my first hires. He worked for me for a little over six years.”

  “That gives us something of a window. We don’t have a lot of time for bureaucratic bullshit on this. Rubens is going to kill his next victim tonight at 8:00 P.M. so we have to move fast. The FBI is going to need to access to your system. We are going to run the names, social security numbers, dates of birth and any other identifying information of every autopsy conducted by this office in the ten years before Munger disappeared. Then we are going to cross reference that against identities that surfaced in Chicago, Los Angeles and most importantly, Washington DC and the surrounding area. We’ll see what pops.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Dr. Wayne replied. “Whatever you need, we’ll do.”

  “Excellent,” Mac replied as he swiped the screen on his cell phone and placed a call. “Senior Special Agent Galloway, here is your new priority, and on this one, we gotta haul ass.” Mac explained what he needed.

  Despite the speed required, there were hoops to jump through. There were phone calls back and forth between Mac and Galloway, Dr. Wayne and his higher-ups with the Commonwealth, and eventually FBI Director Mitchell and the Massachusetts Governor and Attorney General. Two hours later, the go button was ready to be pushed.

  “What are you doing in the meantime?” Galloway asked.

  Mac looked at his watch, which read 1:45 P.M. “Wire and I are making a beeline to the airport. We’re on our way back.”

  • • •

  The reporter was resting on the bench in the waiting area for the medical examiner’s office, awaiting the confirmation of the identification on a murder victim so he could finish up his report and get his editor off his back.

  He saw the double doors open and immediately recognized Mac McRyan and the woman; her name was Wire, he thought. Rubens was a big story in Boston, where the notorious killer got his start. So why were they up here? Before he could get up off the bench and ask that question the two were whisked away in a gray Ford sedan.

  The story he was working on was the usual pop and drop murder, probably a mugging gone bad. It would require a paragraph or two at best, well inside the front page of the paper. On the other hand, McRyan an
d Wire, with the clock ticking on yet another victim, were up in Boston meeting at the medical examiner’s office.

  The reporter reached into his pocket for his cell phone. He hadn’t spoken to Ridge in years and wasn’t even sure the number was still good but decided to give it a try.

  “Hugo, it’s been a while, I know… Yeah, I’ve been good. Say, I know you’re down in Washington covering the reemergence of our old friend Rubens… Yeah, in any event, I just saw the most curious thing. Agents McRyan and Wire just walked out of the office of the Chief Medical Examiner up here in Boston … Yeah, Dr. Wayne is still the chief. Look, maybe we can help each other. Do you have any idea why they are here?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “You are a walking contradiction.”

  The FBI plane was granted priority clearance and landed at Reagan National at 3:33 P.M.

  An FBI Suburban and DC patrol car awaited their arrival. They jumped in the Suburban and were quickly whisked away with lights and sirens to the field office. They arrived ten minutes later, greeted by Delmonico.

  “Let’s go,” Grace waved with urgency. “Galloway says we’re getting somewhere.”

  Mac and Wire rushed inside the building. April Greene, Ridge and Coolidge were waiting inside as they came in. Mac was not sure he approved of Ridge’s presence.

  “A little odd, the two of you standing together,” Mac commented, the tone of disapproval obvious.

  “We’ve both been after this guy for ten years and something is going on,” Ridge answered and then pointed at Mac and Wire. “And you two were up in Boston.”

  Mac turned to Wire with an accusatory look.

  “I said not a word,” Wire replied and then asked Ridge, “How the hell do you know that?”

  “A source,” Ridge replied. “You both need to learn that I have them everywhere. So what do you have? I’m going to find it out eventually anyway.”