Mystery: The Sam Prichard Series - Books 1-4

by David Archer

  Unger said, “Caleb, this is Sam Prichard, a private investigator. He said he wanted to ask you a few questions about a case he's working on. I hope it's okay I brought him in?”

  Porter smiled and rose, and Sam was struck by his height; the preacher stood a good four inches over his own six-foot frame. Sam had the fleeting thought that everyone in the church took growth hormones. “Of course it is, Darrel,” he said. “Come in, Mr. Prichard, have a seat.” He looked at the Deacon. “Thanks, Darrel, that'll be all.”

  Sam took a chair that faced Porter's desk, and the preacher sat down in his own again. He glanced at his Bible and read aloud, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” He smiled up at Sam. “I've found that the Lord speaks to me through His Word in very personal ways, sometimes. I woke up this morning with that verse going through my mind, and haven't been able to shake it. I was just sitting here reading the whole passage and praying about it when you arrived. I know who you are, of course; your reputation precedes you.” He stood again and came around the desk, extending his hand. “Caleb Porter, formerly a sinner, later a prisoner, and today a servant of Jesus Christ. What can I do for you, Mr. Prichard?”

  Sam smiled, liking the man despite himself. “Reverend...”

  “I don't care much for titles,” Porter said with a grin. “Just Caleb will do fine.”

  Sam inclined his head in thanks. “Caleb,” he began again. “Then it's just Sam, for me. I'm here because I was given some pictures last night, and a note that says the people in them will be murdered over the next couple of days, unless I can find and stop the killer. The pictures were distorted, the faces unrecognizable, but my wife, who's an absolute genius with computers, managed to unscramble them, and one of them—” he held it up “—looks a lot like you. What do you think? Is this a photo of you, Sir?”

  Porter leaned forward and looked closely, but did not attempt to take the photo from Sam. “That's one of my old publicity shots, from last year. They took out the background – it was taken right here in this office – but that's me, all right.” He stood straight again, then leaned back against his desk. “Ironic, isn't it? I wake up thinking about not fearing death, and then learn that someone wants to kill me.” He closed his eyes and stood there for a moment, then opened them and looked at Sam. "Mr. Prichard,” he said, “do you know Jesus?”

  Sam smiled. “I do,” he said. “Sometimes I'm pretty sure He wishes I'd be friendlier, but we do talk a lot.”

  Porter smiled. “Good. I'd hate to face Him and have Him ask me why I didn't ask you that question before I died. Now, what can I do to be of assistance to you?”

  “Well, to be honest, I'm hoping you might have some idea of who it is that might want to kill you. I doubt this person is actually connected to you, since most serial killers choose victims they don't know personally, but I can't be sure of that, so I'm trying to cover all the angles.”

  Porter sucked in his bottom lip and shook his head. “I could probably make a list of people who might not mind all that much if I died, but I don't think they'd actually take any action.”

  Sam nodded. “I didn't really think so, but I'm trying to hit all the possibilities.” He showed the preacher the photos of the two women. “Any chance you recognize either of these ladies?”

  Porter took the photos and looked at each one closely, but shook his head. “I don't think so. The second one looks a little like one of the ladies in our congregation, but I can't say it's her. Doris Blevins is her name.” He turned and went to a bookshelf, then withdrew a large book and flipped through its pages. “Here she is,” he said. “This is our yearbook from last spring. This is Doris, right here.” He held the book out and pointed at one photo.

  Sam looked at the one he indicated, and then at the one in his hand. “No, I don't think that's her,” he said. “I wish it had been, that would make my job easier.” He looked up at the preacher. “So, the question that remains, then, is where are we gonna hide you for a few days? The killer says he's going to kill one of the victims around one AM tomorrow morning, and each of the other two twelve hours apart after that. If I don't stop him by the third one, he says there will then be a fourth, but he won't give me any leads at all on that one.”

  Porter looked down at the floor and closed his eyes for a moment. Sam could see his lips moving, but there was no sound, and he knew the preacher was praying. A moment later, he opened his eyes and looked at Sam.

  "Sam,” he said, “I can't go into hiding.”

  Sam stared at him. “That's up to you, Caleb, but if not, I'd suggest hiring a bodyguard. I can get the police to assign you a detail...”

  Porter smiled. “You're not understanding me. Remember the passage I quoted when you came in? 'And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.' I must place my trust in my Savior, and if it's time for me to leave this world, then that's okay with me. God will decide whether or not I die, not this poor soul who wants to play games with you.” He sighed. “I'd greatly prefer it if no one knew about this. Is that possible?”

  Sam sat there and just looked at him for a moment. “I can try. The police have all of the information I have, including your picture. They may not be as willing to stay out of it as you want them to be, though.”

  Porter nodded. “We'll let God handle that, then, too. I think He's capable, don't you?”

  Sam stood and took a business card out of his pocket to give to the preacher. “If you change your mind, or have any thoughts that might help me, please call me.”

  Porter slapped him on the back. “I certainly will, Sam. Thank you for coming.” He extended a hand again, and as Sam shook it, he said, “I love you.”

  Sam's eyebrows went up an inch, and Porter laughed. “I love you, and everyone else,” he said. “Christ commands us to love one another, remember? How can I do the work He's called me to do if I'm not willing to follow His commandments?”

  Sam grinned. “Okay,” he said. “And in that case, Caleb, I love you, too.”

  “Great! Hey, we'd love to see you at our Sunday morning service! Bring the wife and kids, we're fun for the whole family!”

  Sam nodded. “I'll give it serious thought,” he said. “Indie and I have talked about finding a church, but things have been pretty unsettled lately. Maybe it's time.”

  Sam left the office and found his way back to the front doors, where Unger was waiting. “Well, Mr. Prichard,” he said. “Get everything straightened out?”

  Sam smiled and nodded. “I think so,” he said. “The Pastor was very helpful. You have a good day, now.” He slipped through the door that Unger held open and hobbled back to his Corvette.

  He saw the note sticking up from the windshield wiper before he got to the car, and a shiver went down his spine. He walked up to it, took his Swiss Army knife from his pocket, and pulled out its tweezers. Using them, he tugged the note free and saw that it was a single, folded sheet of paper with no envelope. It was typed in the same way as the last one.

  Mr. Prichard, it read, I'm delighted to see that you're on the case! Even better, that you've already determined the identity of one of my targets. That pleases me, so I'm going to give you a few more hints.

  One of the women will be the first target. She lives alone near the Denver-Arvada line, and owns a business that caters to new mothers. If you can determine who she is before the deadline tonight, I will let her live.

  “Aw, crap,” Sam said, as he took out his phone and dialed Karen Parks again. This time, she answered. “Karen, it's Sam...”

  “Sam!” she said. “We're going over these pictures. The man is Caleb Porter, we're sure of it, and I've got officers on the way to tell him right now.”

  “Call 'em off,” Sam said. “I'm at his church right now, and he does not want to hide or have protection, says he prefers to trust God. That isn't why I'm calling, though, Karen
; I've got another note, and this one was put on my car while I was in talking to Porter. I'm going back inside to see if just maybe they've got cameras on this place and got a shot of whoever did it. And you don't have to say it, I'll wait right here till you show up!”

  “You—you'd better!” she said, and hung up on him.

  Sam turned back toward the church and Unger opened the door again. “Forget something, Mr. Prichard?” he asked.

  Sam shook his head. “No, but while I was inside, someone put a note on my car. I don't suppose you might have seen who did it? Or that you've got security cameras on the front parking area?”

  Unger frowned. “We don't have any cameras, I'm afraid, and I didn't see anyone out there. Of course, I was gone for a bit, went to the little boys' room for a few minutes. I don't think anyone would have known I wasn't at my post, though.”

  Sam looked at him. “Somebody did,” he said. “The police are on the way here now, and they're going to want to check every computer and printer in the place. If this note was typed up here, we need to know it.”

  Unger stared at him. “Couldn't have been,” he said, “unless the Pastor did it. He's the only one here that has a printer of his own; everyone else uses the big one that's hooked to all the computers.”

  Sam nodded. “Then let's see that one,” he said. Unger shrugged and led the way back down the same hallway.

  The main office was staffed by three ladies, and they were more than happy to let Sam look at the printer. He glanced at the note again and saw a thin, dark line running down the page about three-fourths of the way to the right edge. That would be from a flaw in the printer, and would be as identifiable as the scoring on a bullet.

  He asked one of the ladies to print something, anything. One of the ladies smiled and clicked something on her computer, and a page came out a second later. Sam snatched it up and looked, but there was no line, and the print was much cleaner and crisper than on the note. He shook his head. “Wasn't this one. And there are no other printers in the building?”

  One of the ladies shook her head. “Only the one in Pastor's office,” she said, “but he almost never uses it.”

  Sam stalked back to Porter's office and knocked, then entered. Porter looked up, surprised but smiling. “Sam,” he said. “Something wrong?”

  Still holding with just the tweezers, Sam held out the note. “This got put on my car since I've been here,” he said. “I need to see a page from your printer, please, right now.”

  Porter looked confused, but said, “Sure.” He reached down to his computer and tapped a couple of buttons, and the small printer on his credenza began to hum and click. A moment later, a sheet fed out of it and Sam grabbed it.

  No line. The note hadn't come from this one, either. That wasn't a huge surprise, since Sam had been with Porter for most of the time he'd been at the church, but he'd had to check.

  Sam sat down in the same chair he'd been in before. “According to this note, he's glad I found you so quickly. He's given me a couple of hints about who one of the women is, and says if I can figure out her identity before the deadline tonight, he'll leave her alone.” He looked Porter in the eye. “No one saw him put the note on my car, and you guys don't have security cameras up. Either he's following me around, or he was here, waiting for me to show up.”

  Porter frowned. “But how would he have known you'd find me?”

  “My wife,” Sam said, “is a computer genius, and that's been mentioned in the press a few times. If he knows that, then he'd have figured she'd find a way to unscramble the photos, and your face is pretty recognizable around here. He'd have figured I'd know you, I think, if he expected us to clean up the pictures. Then, he'd expect me to visit you first, I would imagine. Yeah, he could have been waiting somewhere around here for me to drive up, had this note all ready to go.”

  The two of them sat there for a moment, and then Porter came around and sat in the chair beside Sam's.

  “Sam,” he said, “Let's pray.”

  Sam only nodded, and closed his eyes. Porter began, “Dear, precious Heavenly Father, we ask Your aid in this grave matter. Sam is faced with a fight against pure evil, and we know that only You can see into all hearts and know the thoughts of all men. We ask, Father, that You touch Sam Prichard and guide him as he strives to protect innocent lives, lives that may not yet be ready for eternity. Father, lead Sam to this woman, that her life might be spared, and lead him to this person who is doing this thing, so that he can be stopped in time before anyone has to die to satisfy his evil plans. We ask this in Jesus's Name, Father. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Sam said, and looked at the preacher. “Thank you, Caleb. I need all the prayers and help I can get on this one.”

  Sam got up and went back to the front of the building, where he sat on a bench just inside the front doors until Karen arrived with four uniformed officers. He showed her the note, and then took a picture of it with his phone so that she could take the original back to check for prints, but he knew they wouldn't find any. The officers checked the printers, just as he had done, and then Karen spent fifteen minutes trying to convince Porter to let her put a police guard on him, but as Sam had predicted, she had no success. Finally, she told Sam he could go.

  He was just leaving the parking lot when his phone rang, and he saw that it was Indie. “Hey, Babe,” he said.

  “Okay, Herman didn't have any luck on photo recognition, but he's narrowed the unsolved cases down to about a hundred that might fit our guy. I've got a printout going now; are you gonna be home anytime soon, to look at it?”

  “I'm on the way now,” he said, then told her about the note. “Think Herman can help us figure out who this woman could be?”

  “Herman can do anything, as long as he has enough data. I'll plug this into him and turn him loose.”

  “Okay. I'll be there in a bit. I love you!”

  “Love you too!” she said, and the line went dead.

  Sam drove for a few minutes, and then picked his phone up again. This time, he called his mother-in-law. She answered and sounded out of breath.

  “Sam?” she asked. “Is something wrong? Is Indie okay? Is Kenzie okay?”

  Sam smiled. “They're fine,” he said. “I was actually calling to, um—I want to know if Beauregard has anything to tell me.”

  There was dead silence on the line for several seconds, and then, “Well—he says you may win the game, but not all of the hands. Does that make any sense to you?”

  Sam sighed. “I'm afraid it does,” he said. “Anything else?”

  Silence again, for the space of five breaths. “He says to remember Sun…Sue. Who is Sun Sue?”

  “An old, dead Chinaman,” Sam said. “He said that if you know yourself and know your enemy, you can win a hundred battles. Tell Beauregard he could be a little clearer.”

  “He says you have to find out as much about your enemy as you can, and that will lead you to the answers you're looking for.”

  Sam sighed. “That's what I get for asking a ghost,” he muttered.

  Kim said, “What?”

  “I said, tell him he's the most!” Sam said, and then he said goodbye and hung up before she could say anything else. “Learn all I can about my enemy, yeah,” he mumbled as he drove.

  He got home twenty minutes later, and Indie met him at the door. “Hey, Baby,” she said. “So, how did it go with the preacher?”

  “Pretty good. He says he'll trust in God to keep him safe, rather than in the police. Can't say as I blame him.”

  “Well, come on in and see what I've got for you. Herman's been a busy boy, and I think he's made some fantastic discoveries. Come and see for yourself.”

  He followed her through the house and into the office. There, on the computer screen, was a whole list of unsolved cases from the past fifteen years. Indie sat down in her chair, and Sam took the chair beside her like always.

  “Okay,” she said, “I told Herman to look for all unsolved cases from the past fifte
en years that did not have a known suspect, and that seem to be similar in one way or another. These are what he came up with.”

  Sam started looking through the list of dozens of headings.

  Lone woman killed by a gunshot wound to head.

  Single man shot in the head.

  Sniper kills man walking on the road with his wife.

  Gunshot claims one, leaves another.

  Shot fired through window, kills a man while he’s sitting with his girlfriend.

  Man shot dead while driving, car crashes into railings.

  Man shot in the head while driving.

  Single shot kills two.

  Sam clicked on each one, reading everything he could about each case. The victims seemed to be chosen at random, but after the note Sam had gotten that day, he didn't believe that for a moment. Each of the three in the photos had been chosen for a specific reason, and the killer had apparently studied them thoroughly. Sam would bet that, if any of these were victims of the killer he was dealing with, the killer had come to know each of them quite well by the time he had pulled the trigger.

  There was no easily spotted pattern to the victims. They ranged in age from around twenty up to sixty; they seemed to be equally distributed between male and female, white and black (interesting, Sam thought, no Asians or Hispanics at all), light haired and dark, big and small, tall and short. All of them had been killed by a gunshot wound, almost all of them to the head. There was no pattern to where they were killed or whether they were alone or with someone at the time.

  The only oddity was that the killer seemed to enjoy killing people in front of their loved ones. At least half of the victims were in close proximity to someone else when they were shot, but in one case he had seemingly deviated from that pattern. A couple who had only been married a week were both shot through their heads when they leaned together for a kiss.

  There were almost a hundred such cases. If the killer was being truthful in the first note, that would mean an average of about seven victims per year. Sam shook his head.