WHAT GOES AROUND - ANGIE BARTONI CASE FILE #4 (ANGIE BARTONI CASE FILES Book 1)

by Marshall Huffman

  “We made some progress today.”

  “Some but still no real suspect.”

  “You think this was a hired job don’t you?” Dan asked.

  “I did for a while but now it doesn’t make sense. If it was to get Melody, why risk taking all three? He could have grabbed her when she was alone. It is much more complicated trying to control three. I’ve pretty much ruled that out.”

  “Okay, I can see that.”

  “And the beating. Why beat them the way he did? What was the purpose? Someone does that out of anger or they enjoy it. The chances of being personally angry with all three seems pretty slim don’t you think?”

  “I don’t like where this is going,” Dan replied.

  “Me either but…well there it is.”

  “Angie, don’t get mad but I think we may need to bring in a profiler on this. It might help,” Dan said looking at his beer.

  “You may be absolutely right. I’m not a big believer in them but I’m having a hard time figuring out all the angles. Maybe if we knew what was driving this guy it would help. I don’t see how it could hurt at this point,” I said.

  Dan had one of those priceless looks. His mouth was open and his eyes were bugged out. I expected him to faint at any moment but he managed to find his voice.

  “Do you really mean that or are you just yanking my chain?” he said still trying to determine if I was putting him on.

  “No, I’m dead serious. What do we have to lose at this point? We are chasing our tails right now. Maybe we need a fresh perspective.”

  “Man. Let me buy another beer. I thought you might throw yours in my face for even suggesting such a thing.”

  “Dan there is a fine line between pride and knowing when to ask for help. In this case, not asking for help is doing a disservice to Melody Jameson. I honestly doubt her husband had anything to do with her death. I could be wrong but I don’t see him as the killer type. I don’t like him one little bit but he is going to go to jail and someone like that won’t do very well.”

  “Then how do we proceed from here?” Dan asked.

  “We should get the reports back tomorrow. I sent out the MO to every one east of the Mississippi. If I’m right, we should get a hit from someplace. I’ll tell the captain…no, wait. You’ll tell the captain that we would like to bring in a profiler. If I do it he will spend half the day laughing. Between those two we should get something to go on. I’m not putting any more effort into Jameson. He is a pedophile but not a killer,” I told him.

  “If you get a hit on the MO it could get ugly real fast,” Dan pointed out.

  “It’s already ugly but you’re right. It will turn into a media event and that is always difficult to control.”

  “Not to mention the Commissioner and holding press conferences. All that does is keep us from working on the case,” Dan replied.

  “I agree but if we get a hit, having the profiler on board will mean we are being proactive rather than reactive.”

  “Do you think the media will care?” Dan asked.

  “No but at least they can’t throw it up in our faces,” I replied.

  By now I had finished my beer and was considering having another one but decided I wasn’t going to keep baby stepping over my imaginary line. I stood up, put a ten on the table and said goodnight.

  “Thanks for coming,” Dan said as I was walking off.

  “See you tomorrow,” I replied.

  It was getting dark and the ride in the TR was a tad cool but I didn’t feel like putting the top up. Instead I turned the heater on full blast. It wasn’t much help really.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Diet Coke, check. Coconut donuts, check. Reports from our queries, check. I was ready to go to work. I started shuffling through the files. Some of the files were neatly done with a brief synopsis attached. Some were just a jumble of papers and reports stuffed inside. It kind of told a story about the detectives. Those who took pride in their work and those that were just going through the motions.

  I was on the fourth folder when Dan came up the stairs. As always he went straight to the break room and got coffee and came back and plopped down. He never just sits. He does this drop thing.

  “Got the reports back?”

  “Some. Looks like about twenty so far. Here,” I said passing over a stack of files.

  They were all thick and most contained the entire investigation reports. Some were kind of sketchy. We sat and read until the captain came in. He nodded and went into his office.

  “Head on over and tell the captain we want to bring a profiler on,” I said softly.

  “You were really serious last night?”

  “You know I was. Don’t pull that ‘I’m shocked’ routine. Go tell him,” I said pointing to the captain’s office.

  The general rule is that if the captain’s door is open you can go in and talk to him. If it is closed you needed to knock and wait to be invited in. That system seems to work pretty well for the most part.

  I saw Dan disappear inside. I could hear the captain say ‘What?’ clear over at my desk. Then ‘No way’. Now I didn’t know if he meant no way was he going to let us do that or no way I would ever ask. I would just have to wait until Dan came back. He seemed to be in there a long time before he finally emerged.

  “He is calling to request a profiler right now,” Dan informed me.

  “I heard ‘no way’, I guess that was in reference to me asking for the profiler.

  “Yeah. He said he was going to call the weather station and see if Hell froze over last night.”

  “He is a real hoot. I don’t care, as long as he does it.”

  **

  We had been at it for about an hour when I sat up straight.

  “I got something.”

  Dan looked up, “I may have hit on something too. I’m just going back over it now.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Ohio. Just across the border. A little town called Whitewater.”

  “Mine is in that same area. A place called Middleboro,” I told him, “Let’s set these two aside and look for any other MOs like that from Ohio. Especially along the border.”

  Suddenly we were alert and chipper again. Two MOs just across the border meant a serial killer was on the loose. Suddenly it dawned on me. That was bad news as well. The FBI will be involved if we bring this up. Crap, now I was going to have to make an ethical decision. Dan and I could just keep it to ourselves and work the case or we could report it. Decisions, decisions.

  A third match in Bethel and a forth in Hollansburg pretty much told the story. We had landed in a deep pile of doo-doo. No way we could keep this to ourselves. I didn’t want to tell him until I had reviewed all of the files. I’m glad I waited.

  We found similar cases in Alexandria, Silver Grove, Fort Thomas, and Mentor, Kentucky. In each case three victims were abducted and eventually found hung in some remote area with their throats hacked open. We were looking at twenty-seven women murdered by the same serial killer. Why hadn’t someone put this together by now?

  “Come on. Time to talk to the captain.”

  His door was closed so I knocked.”

  “Come.”

  “Hey captain.”

  “Sorry, do I know you?” he asked with a fake puzzled look on his face.

  “Laugh now, you won’t in a minute.”

  That took the smirk off his face.

  “What’s up?”

  I laid the folders on his desk. He looked at them and then at me.

  “I hope this isn’t what I think it is.”

  “I’m afraid so. We have found four in Ohio, four in Kentucky and ours here. A total of 27 women. All killed the same way. Always in threes. All tortured and then bashed in the head and finally their throats ripped open,” I told him.

  He sat back in his chair, hardly breathing.

  “Why hasn’t anyone seen this before?”

  “Captain, I asked myself that just a few seconds ago. You would t
hink the FBI would have started tracking this guy. How could they have missed it for this long.”

  “How often do they take place?”

  “About every forty-five to sixty days. The shortest one is forty-five, the longest, sixty-two days.”

  “Geez. That doesn’t leave us much time. It’s been thirty days already. So we have between two to four weeks before he does it again,” the captain said, sitting up and tapping on the files.

  “We have no choice but to bring in the FBI,” I said.

  “I don’t see any way around it at this point. I’ll make the call. You might as well start getting copies of the files or they will take them and waltz right out of here with them. You know how they are,” McGregor said, picking up the phone.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  One thing for certain, a good detective never wants to be involved with either a task force or having a case infected with the dreaded FBI virus. It isn’t that they aren’t good at their job, most of them are, but it’s the way they go about it.

  For some reason they tend to look down on the local cops like were something they just stepped in. It’s the ‘we’re superior’ attitude that wrinkles me. I asked the captain to request the agents we had worked with on a previous case but all he could do was try. They had been the least offensive agents Dan and I had ever worked with.

  I had just finished making three copies of each of the files when the captain came out and handed me a piece of paper. I recognized two of the names immediately. Brad Pendergrass, the senior agent and Cynthia, you can call me Cindy, Shores. I didn’t recognize the other two names. One of them was probably the profiler.

  When Dan came back from lunch I brought him up to speed. He remembered Cindy quite well. Men, they are such pigs. He couldn’t remember a thing about Pendergrass. I,however, could but that was totally different.

  They wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow which gave Dan and I time to make some phone calls to the Sheriff’s Offices and Detectives that had handled the cases in Ohio and Kentucky.

  As you can imagine, it was like pulling teeth. At first they would give us the run around. They wanted to make sure they were CYAing. You know, covering your ass. Some said they weren’t willing to discuss it over the phone. We ended up with three that would actually answer questions.

  The Sheriff who handled the case in Mentor, Kentucky was a straight shooter. He answered all of my questions and admitted that it had never occurred to him to try to find out if other murders with the same MO had occurred. I gathered he was pretty new at the job and he confessed that it had been his first murder case. He said he had nightmares for six months after that.

  He was a really nice guy but honestly, not much help at all. I thanked him and said I would let him know of the outcome. It seemed like the nice thing to do.

  **

  He had been watching the three women every day for the past two weeks. They were so wrapped up in their own little world they had no idea they were being stalked. He had taken hundreds of pictures and they had no clue.

  The three women took turns driving to the bridge club they belonged to and played almost every Wednesday. Afterwards they would usually go to some place like Panera’s and talk for another hour or so before being dropped off.

  He would use the exact same system he had used previously. It was so simple and effective. They all three drove expensive SUVs. One had a BMW X6, another drove a Mercedes G class and the tall red head had a Lexus LX. All expensive. Well, he thought, they had better enjoy the good life while they can. Soon they would know what it was like to grow up without anyone to care for them. To cry and beg that the pain stopped.

  They would learn what his life had been like until one day he decided to never cry again. Instead he vowed to never let his father or mother, starve, beat or abuse him again. After that last time he waited until they had gone to sleep, crept outside and picked up the ax.

  Back inside, standing in the doorway he made his plans. His father was not only the strongest but most brutal. He walked over to the foot of the bed, raised the ax and brought it down as hard as he could across his father’s leg.

  His father screamed and tried to figure out what was happening but before the horror could register, the ax came down across his other leg. Not even flinching as blood shot out of the stump he walked around to his mother.

  She was trying to make herself into a ball but the ax sliced down, severing her foot. He swung the ax once more, catching her just below the knee. He could hear bones breaking as she screamed.

  He casually walked back to the doorway and just watched as they both frantically tried to stop the life from flowing out of them. There was nothing either of them could do. Finally his father was still. His mother was barely alive.

  “Why?” she asked, “Why would you do something like this. I’m your mother.”

  He looked at her for a few seconds and said, “What goes around..”

  Then simply walked out of the room.

  The last thing he heard her say was, “I don’t understand.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I was at my desk when I heard a vaguely familiar voice coming up the stairs.

  I turned just as Special Agent Brad Pendergrass’s head appeared. He was obviously talking to his team. A second later I recognized Cynthia, you can call me Cindy, Shores and two people that I didn’t know.

  I looked over at Dan to make sure he didn’t have drool dripping down his chin when he caught sight of Cindy. I think his eyes were watering but at least he didn’t drool.

  “Special Agent Pendergrass, Agent Shore, welcome back,” I said getting up and extending my hand.

  I was shocked to see what they had on. Brad was wearing a Polo type shirt, Kakis and brown loafers. No three piece dark gray suit. Cynthia had on a silk blouse, slacks and pumps. The other two agents were dressed similarly. Okay, what was going on here? This was the FBI right?

  “Nice to see you again Angie, Dan,” Brad said.

  Angie? Dan? Clones was all I could think of. They couldn’t be the FBI agents we worked with last time.

  “This is our profiler, Agent Marsha Baker and Agent Ned James. He handles most of our communications and technical data.”

  Dan was hovering around Cindy like a puppy dog. Men. I did notice that Brad had changed his aftershave. It had a touch of musk to it. I mean, I’m a trained observer, right? I should notice stuff like that.

  “We have a work space ready for you. Same conference room as last time if that’s okay with you.”

  “Hey, whatever. We will adapt,” Brad said.

  Clones. Definitely not the real FBI.

  “Angie, I understand you are the one who put this all together. This guy has been in action for almost two years and no one else noticed the similarities. That is really outstanding work.”

  Geez, I know I blushed. It was good work but having Brad actually say it was something else.

  “I’m sure someone would have put it together at some point,” I said modestly.

  “After how many more women died? Nice work Angie,” he said again.

  “So, let’s get you guys situated and then we can go over what we have. I have all the case files copied so you can each have a set.”

  “See,” Pendergrass said, turning to Ned and Marsha, “I told you she was sharp as a tack. We could use someone like her in the FBI.”

  OMG. I felt like I had entered an alternative universe. This was almost more than I could handle. The operative word being almost, maybe I could take just a little more.

  It didn’t take them long to get settled in and while Ned was doing his technical thing, Brad came over to my desk.

  “I hope you don’t think I was blowing smoke. I honestly did tell them that you were certainly no ordinary detective. I also meant what I said about putting it together. Actually I am embarrassed that the FBI didn’t catch it. We have people that do nothing but look for similarities and I would say twenty some women killed in the same way should have rung some
alarm bells.”

  “Thanks Brad. I do appreciate the nice words. So, I have to ask. What is with the casual dress?”

  “Ah. I noticed you looking at me strangely. Our new director has decided to relax the dress code when we are traveling outside of the state. We can wear casual dress clothes. No jeans or Tee shirts. Socks are required and a belt but other than that, we can dress down.”

  “Wow! I never thought I would see the day,” I replied.

  “Neither did I but I’m glad it’s here.”

  **

  Captain McGregor made a brief appearance and welcomed them before we got down to business. I gave them a brief overview of what they were going to find in the folders. I explained the timeline I thought we were looking at and everyone realized that we didn’t have much time.

  Marsha, the profiler, didn’t ask too many questions. She was just taking it all in. I think she was watching the dynamics of the group as well. Cindy had made sure she took the seat by Dan which I didn’t like much. Not because of her overtures but because it kept Dan from paying close attention.

  There is a time for fun and a time for serious business. Women’s lives were at stake. I think Brad noticed it as well and gave Cindy one of those looks like you do kids when you are admonishing them without saying a thing. Ned. What about Ned? I couldn’t get a read on him. He seemed to be paying attention but every once in a while, his eyes would glaze over and he seemed to lose focus. ADD maybe? Whatever it was, it made me nervous if we had to pull a surveillance watch.

  I passed around the folders and decided that Dan and I should leave them to read the material before we met again. When we got back to our desks I decided I had to say something to Dan.

  “Dan. Look, you’re a good partner and all but you are not on top of your game. You are distracted and that could get you or I killed. Yeah, Cindy is hot and she seems to be sending out vibes but I can’t have someone around that doesn’t have my six. I know I’ll be there for you but will you be there for me?” I said.