by Spencer Kope
“Well, Jens is a hantavirus denier.”
Jimmy’s head is shaking back and forth like a broken washing machine. “Let’s get back to the part about helping your mom clean out the garage. Please.”
“Right; well, as you know, she’s a packrat.”
“She’s a hoarder,” Jimmy corrects.
“Right, but she limits it to the garage. Still, you can barely walk through the place, so we pulled everything out onto the parking pad so we could go through it. We spent all day sorting through the clutter, and in the late afternoon we came across this old hope chest. It belonged to Grandma Samuelsen and ended up in the garage after she died. I don’t think it’s been touched since.
“We really had no idea what to expect, since Mom never bothered to look inside when it was put into the garage. When we opened it up, we found stacks and stacks of old letters that Grandpa wrote to Grandma over the years, starting when they were first dating and all the way up to a year before Grandma died. Whenever he was away, Grandpa wrote to her. Mom said it wasn’t because he wanted to pass on news, but so she’d know that he was thinking of her while he was away. I’m sure Grandpa got some letters too, but we never found any. Grandma probably saved every letter she ever got.”
“On account of her being a hoarder,” Jimmy says.
“Exactly,” I say, grinning at him. “But in this case, I’m glad she did. We spent the next hour reading the letters to each other. Mom was bawling her eyes out, and I think even Jens got a little misty.”
“What about you?”
“Nah, I was stoic.”
“I’m sure,” Jimmy replies. “I’ve seen how stoic you are.”
I chuckle—only because he’s right.
“It got me to thinking, though,” I say, trying to remain serious. “With Heather constantly on the road with her job, and me bouncing all over the country tracking bad guys, I thought it would be nice to have that kind of connection. Something she can actually hold in her hand; something she can look at and read if she starts to miss me.”
“You’re assuming she misses you,” Jimmy chimes in.
I just ignore the jab. “Poke at me all you want, but I’m right about this. You should try it with Jane. Trust me, she’ll melt. Women love this kind of thing. Heather’s been on the road for the last week and I’ve sent her two letters so far.”
“The day I have to take relationship advice from you, Steps, is the day I’m in real trouble. Now, out of my room so I can get some sleep.”
“Really? Hunger Games is coming on in a few. I thought—”
“No! You’ve seen it thirty-seven times, Steps.”
“Six or seven times,” I correct.
He just shakes his head. “Do what you want, but do it in your own room. It’s been a long day and I need sleep.” He looks at me with a corner of his mouth twisted up. “When we woke up this morning we were still in Whatcom County. Since then we’ve investigated a murder in Skagit County, flown two thousand miles, examined some severed feet, and tracked a killer up a mountain.”
“And beat up a judge,” I add.
“And beat up a judge,” he says with a little too much satisfaction. “Get out.”
I’m halfway out the door when I remember something.
“Diane called while you were talking to Jane. Our liaison with El Paso PD is Detective Tony Alvarado. She said he’s a real go-getter.”
“Detective … Tony … Alvarado,” Jimmy scratches on his notepad. “Got it.”
“Sure you don’t want to watch Hunger—”
The pillow hits the door next to my head and I mutter, “Fine,” and make my way back to my boring, homogenized room.
CHAPTER FOUR
River Belmont Hotel—September 3, 8:32 A.M.
Normally I don’t sleep this late when we’re on the road, but it was a late night after a long day, so I spoiled myself a little. I’m sure Jimmy was up at six as usual. Probably got his workout in, plus a five-mile run, then had breakfast. Right about now he’s watching the news and double-checking his notes.
I have two new emails on my phone when I step out of the shower: one from Diane, the other from eBay. I open the eBay alert first. I’ve been bidding on a first-edition, first-printing of The Caine Mutiny to add to my collection. The alert is just letting me know that the auction ends soon and I’m still the highest bidder; in fact, the bid isn’t even close to my maximum. With luck, I’ll get this one cheap.
The email from Diane is a little more problematic.
Three weeks ago, on August 13 to be precise, we responded to a crime scene outside Fairmont, West Virginia. A nineteen-year-old hairstylist named Ally McCully was found dead in a wooded clearing after being reported missing a week earlier. The shine matched that from an unsolved murder in Bellingham eleven years ago.
Long ago I dubbed the killer Leonardo.
It wasn’t a name randomly selected. It was derived from that first crime scene itself, from the pattern intentionally placed upon the ground. I didn’t see it at first, but as I puzzled over why he would walk a perfect circle around the victim I started to recognize the image—and then I was certain. It was a crude rendition of a drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci, a symbol that had, in some way, come to represent humanity.
I was sixteen when I first saw it.
The image is with me still.
My attempts to identify Leonardo predate the Special Tracking Unit by six years, and I’ve been frustrated at every turn. This new victim three thousand miles away in West Virginia represented the first substantial change in the investigation since it began. What it yields, if anything, is yet to be seen.
That’s the sad thing about hunting serial killers: evidence is doled out in batches, each batch paid for with the life of the next victim. The cost is high.
The decade-long span between Leonardo’s two known victims begs a question: Is this really his second killing, or are there more victims scattered across the country? More evidence paid for in blood?
Nineteen-year-old Ally McCully was faceup with her feet together pointing south, and her arms outstretched and pointing to the east and to the west. That’s what the cops saw.
My view was slightly different.
I saw where he first extended her arms above her shoulders before bringing them back perpendicular to her body as if she were pointing east and west. I saw where he splayed her legs apart before pulling them together pointing south. I saw where he walked a circle around her still corpse, his oozing black shine encompassing her in a perfect circle.
I saw Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man cast upon the ground.
The only thing missing was the cube that complements the circle. For some reason he doesn’t include that. Perhaps it’s an irrelevant omission, but I suspect it’s by design. He’s a creature of ritual and purpose; you don’t create the Vitruvian Man on the ground with a corpse and neglect to include one of the main elements.
I was startled—repulsed—when I saw the image again after so many years.
Turning from the body, I blurted Leonardo’s name to Jimmy and a local detective overheard. That led to questions I wasn’t prepared for. Jimmy and I tried some quick damage control, and I thought the issue had been put to rest, but a particular detective from Fairmont PD keeps calling. He’s persistent, the type of persistent that doesn’t quit, which I admire, though it creates a real problem. At some point I’m going to have to give him some straight answers. Fortunately, Leonardo’s name hasn’t reached the media yet, but that too is inevitable.
Diane’s email is addressed to both me and Jimmy. It’s short and to the point: Detective Graham called. Again. Tired of making excuses. Take care of it.
She’s bossy that way.
El Paso Police Department—9:27 A.M.
The El Paso Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division, or CID, is located in the headquarters building on Raynor Street and is home to several specialized units, including the Crimes Against Persons section. As the name implies,
the unit handles incidents such as homicide, robbery, sexual assault, and kidnapping.
If you’re a detective, you’re going to get some ugly cases tossed your way. The good news is … you’re a detective; you’ve already proven you can handle it.
Tony Alvarado can more than handle it.
Diane’s brief bio says he’s thirty-two years old, started with the department eight years ago, and picked up detective just last year. He’s single and enjoys building and flying remote-control airplanes.… I don’t know why that’s relevant, but Diane thought it important enough to include.
Detective Alvarado is waiting for us in the lobby when we arrive. He’s easy to spot: in a sea of blue uniforms, he’s the only dark gray suit. Diane must have done a good job describing us, because as soon as we enter the building he starts across the tile floor.
“Special Agent Donovan?” he says as we come together.
“Call me Jimmy.” They shake briskly and strongly, like men do when they’re testing one another. “And you must be Magnus Craig?”
“Guilty,” I say, taking his hand.
“Magnus? Is that Scandinavian?”
“It is; Norwegian, to be precise. My mom insisted.”
“She’s Norwegian, I take it?”
“To the bone. She’s been in the country thirty years and we still haven’t been able to talk the accent out of her.”
Alvarado chuckles at this. “Well, it’s certainly a unique name.”
“I can do better,” I say. “Most people just call me Steps.”
“Steps?” He stares at me for a moment, utterly baffled, and then I see a change in his eyes, a realization. “Because you’re a tracker?”
“Not just a tracker,” Jimmy interjects, “the best tracker you’ll ever see.”
Tony nods. “I believe it. I hear you did some tracking last night.” He looks from me, to Jimmy, and then back. “My lieutenant got a call from Judge Ehrlich this morning. I don’t know what he said, but it was pretty much a one-sided conversation for the better part of ten minutes.” He rubs his hands together. “Lieutenant Kelly said he wants to see you when you get in. He wouldn’t say why.”
Jimmy sighs.
“Beat up one judge…” I say, shaking my head and making a tsk-tsk sound with my tongue.
“I didn’t beat him up,” Jimmy replies. “I restrained him from assaulting a federal officer; there’s a big difference.” He shakes his head in disgust, and then motions with his hand, saying, “Let’s get this over with.”
Detective Alvarado leads us down pristine halls and up a flight of stairs. We weave our way through a cluster of desks and cubicles before arriving in the open doorway of Lieutenant Kevin Kelly’s cluttered office.
Tony raps twice on the door, but the lieutenant doesn’t look up. After a moment, the detective says, “You wanted to see Special Agent Donovan and Operations Specialist Craig when they arrived.”
Kelly looks up.
Standing, he tosses his pen down and works his way around the desk. The man looks like a taller version of Mike Tyson, without the face tattoo. As he draws near, I’m waiting for him to either punch me or break into a song. Instead, he plants his towering frame in front of us with his arms folded across his chest. He eyes each of us up and down. Not to be intimidated, Jimmy returns the appraisal, pushing himself higher in his shoes while doing so.
“Which one of you is Donovan?” the lieutenant asks.
“That would be me.”
“You the one who roughed up Judge Ehrlich?”
Jimmy doesn’t hesitate. “I used the force I deemed necessary to keep the guy from turning my chest black and blue.”
“You were wearing a vest, weren’t you?” The words are pointed.
“That’s irrelevant,” Jimmy shoots back. “If someone punched you in the chest, you’d book him for assault on an officer, whether you were wearing a vest or not, right?”
“Yeah, but Ehrlich didn’t punch you, he poked you.”
“Same difference,” Jimmy shoots back. He’s shaking his head slowly, and I can tell he’s done with this. We don’t answer to El Paso PD. Looking the lieutenant straight in the face, he says, “If that bloviating, abusive excuse for a judge wants a rematch, tell him I’m at the River Belmont, room two-twenty-seven. Short of that, I’m done with him.”
Deathly silence settles over the room and lingers an eternal moment. Jimmy and Lieutenant Kelly stare each other down, faces blank. Then, in an instant, an explosion of noise shakes the room; a deep-lunged eruption of laughter so strong the windows vibrate. It’s almost instantly followed by a multi-tone cascade of laughter that bounces off every wall—it hits us from every direction. It’s disorienting and sets my head to swiveling as I cast about, looking for the source.
I find it in the most unexpected place.
The initial explosion came from Lieutenant Kelly, who has a huge grin on his face. The rippling echo that followed like a shock wave came from the half dozen detectives who had quietly gathered behind us. Suddenly Kelly’s shaking Jimmy’s hand and clapping him on the back as the others gather to have a go. I hear one of them say, “It’s about time someone face-planted that SOB.”
Our investigation appears to be off to a good start. Judge or no judge, Ehrlich is learning that karma can be a wicked mistress when you get on her dark side.
* * *
Tony’s cubicle isn’t big enough for the three of us, so he commandeered the conference room. He prepositioned pens and notepads on the expansive table, as well as copies of the case report and a stack of crime scene photos. He even set up a desktop terminal with access to the National Crime Information Center—better known as NCIC—so we can run criminal history checks through the Interstate Identification Index, commonly referred to as a running a Triple-I.
If you’ve been arrested in Florida for shoplifting, in Maine for driving under the influence, and in Colorado for possession of heroin, the Triple-I is the report that pulls it all together and provides a complete history of one’s criminal activity all across the country. It’s also the repository for missing person reports, domestic orders, stolen property data, arrest warrants, and a host of other information that is used daily by every cop in the country.
In the center of the conference room table rests an open box of fresh donuts, compliments of Lieutenant Kelly and the rest of the detectives.
Jimmy’s been watching what he eats, even more so than usual. Last month he gained a pound. I don’t know how you even measure that, but apparently he has special abilities. I’ve been trying to be supportive of my partner, so I slide the donuts away from him as he takes his seat and I tuck them safely away to my left.
My intent is to ignore the donuts altogether so the sight of me licking sugar glaze from my fingers doesn’t tempt Jimmy into partaking. He’s preoccupied checking his phone messages, however, and my eyes have a moment to wander … coming to rest on a massive maple bar in the corner of the box. I really don’t know how these things happen, but the pastry somehow finds its way to a napkin in front of me.
My solidarity has its limits.
Tony walks around the table and hands each of us a file. “I pulled every case the judge heard over the last five years. After eliminating the suspects who are in jail, prison, or dead, this is the list I came up with. I also eliminated those who moved out of state.”
“It’s still a big list,” Jimmy says, thumbing through the report. “What about those with cartel connections?”
“We found a couple, so far. Best we can tell, one of them belongs to Los Zetas, and the other two are somehow tied in with La Línea, which is the enforcement wing of the Juárez Cartel. If you’re thinking this was carried out by a cartel, La Línea would be a good place to start looking. Those guys are plain butchers.”
“How do they feel about hacking off feet?” Jimmy asks.
“Feet, heads, arms, you name it. One of the leaders of the unit is believed to be personally responsible for ordering more than fifte
en hundred killings between 2008 and 2011. They seem to have a preference for cutting off heads and leaving them as warnings.”
Pulling the mouse and keyboard near, Tony navigates to a series of folders on the hard drive and starts clicking file names. Images start stacking up on the twenty-four-inch monitor and Tony turns it toward us.
It’s not pretty.
“DEA estimates that seventy percent of the cocaine that enters the U.S. comes through right here,” he says, “at the Juárez–El Paso border and surrounding area. We’re talking at least two hundred million dollars in profits each week; that’s a lot of incentive for violence. The biggest fight over the last few years has been between the Juárez Cartel, which has lost a lot of its influence, and the Sinaloa Cartel, which is now the dominant force in Ciudad Juárez.”
“You seem to know a lot about them,” I say.
“I should.” Tony grins. “If you work law enforcement in El Paso, you have to know your cartels … and the gangs that support them, like the Barrio Azteca.”
“Do you think this is cartel work?” I ask, nodding toward the stack of crime scene photos.
Tony doesn’t answer right away, which I find intriguing.
“You don’t, do you?”
“Something like this,” he says with a slow, exaggerated shrug, “you’d expect it to be cartel … just by the ugliness of it. So I’m not saying definitively that it’s not.… It just doesn’t seem to fit—for a couple reasons.”
“Enlighten us,” Jimmy says.
The fingers on Tony’s left hand strum the tabletop. “Okay,” he says after a moment, “but this is just theory.” Reaching for the stack of crime scene photos, he shuffles through and extracts an eight-by-ten close-up depicting the severed feet still in their Converse sneakers and resting in the ice box on the judge’s living room floor. Placing the photo in front of us, he says, “Notice anything odd?”
Jimmy and I look at each other.
“Besides the obvious,” Tony quickly adds.
Jimmy recites his observations: “He was clothed when his feet were cut off, as evidenced by the shoes and partial socks; Converse shoes aren’t expensive, but they’re not cheap, either, so that rules out your homeless or illegals; also, there’s not as much blood as I would have expected.”