Cover-up

by Michele Martinez

  Melanie clicked send. While she waited for an answer she’d call Dan.

  “Hey,” he said, picking up on the first ring.

  “Everything go okay?’ she asked.

  “Dropped the cutie off. No sign of trouble.”

  “Did you fill my mom in on what’s going on?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Nice lady. She’s worried about you.”

  “I’m worried about Maya.”

  “She’s safe where she is now. It’s a secure building, and your mother’s on a high floor. I told her not to go out or let any strangers in.”

  “You think that’s enough?” Melanie asked.

  “I do. Let’s not lose perspective. We don’t have any proof that the guy who e-mailed you is the same one who shot Harris or killed Suzanne Shepard.”

  “Not yet,” she agreed, looking at her computer screen, which didn’t show anything new.

  “He could just be some pathetic jerk with time on his hands.”

  “Have you had any luck tracing the e-mails?” she asked.

  “Agh, long story,” Dan said with obvious frustration. “I’ll give a full report at the team meeting. The bottom line is no. I have some leads on where to look, but nothing solid. He’s been using public access terminals. I sent guys to stake out the two places he used. But A, he’s probably too smart to use the same terminals again. And B, we don’t actually know what the prick looks like.”

  “He’s careful. It’s going to take a creative strategy to find him.”

  Dan went quiet for a moment. “When you start saying stuff like that, I get very nervous,” he said finally.

  Melanie looked back at the computer screen and drew a sharp breath. She had a new e-mail. It was from him.

  “You there?” Dan said.

  “Yeah. How far away are you?” she asked.

  “Ten, fifteen minutes, depending on traffic. I might be a little late for the meeting.”

  “Do me a favor, keep your phone on.”

  “I will,” he said. “Promise me you’re not planning anything crazy?”

  But she’d already hung up. Melanie opened the e-mail.

  Something you don’t know, you uppity whore? How’s this? The best way to shut up a whiny bitch is with a stun gun blast to the neck. Should I use it on you? I don’t think so. I want you awake, feeling things. You’ll be begging me to kill you.

  Reading his words, Melanie felt cold and nauseous, but her brain still functioned. She remembered that the stun-gun lesion on Suzanne Shepard’s neck hadn’t been reported in the media. It hadn’t even been confirmed by their forensics people yet. But it was definitely real. He was telling her something true. Melanie knew that because she’d seen the mark with her own eyes, that night in the Ramble when she’d viewed his handiwork. There was no question in her mind now that this was the killer talking. This was the Butcher. She knew what he was capable of. She’d seen what he’d done to Suzanne. And he was saying he planned to do the same things to her.

  36

  Melanie might be reckless, but she wasn’t stupid. Once she was convinced she had the killer online, she called in the big guns.

  When he heard the news, Mark Sonschein rushed to her office, bringing along his boss, Sam Estes, who was the chief of the Criminal Division. Sam had been on his way out the door to a meeting in Washington with the deputy attorney general, and the fact that he’d taken time out to confer with her brought home to Melanie the gravity of her situation. These guys were the front office. When people talked about the higher-ups, when they worried about what the chain of command would think, this was who they meant. And now they were sitting here with Melanie talking strategy. She realized this was because she was in danger, not because she was a force to be reckoned with in the office. Yet she couldn’t help feeling gratified at how impressed Sam and Mark seemed by her bravado.

  “We should view this as an opportunity,” Estes said. He was blond, bearded, and thickset, with a reputation for being a big-picture guy, an idea man, while the thin, intense Sonschein specialized in nitty-gritty details. “How do we use the e-mail connection to capture the killer while keeping Melanie safe? Has any effort been made to trace the e-mails?”

  “The FBI already determined that this guy is using public access terminals,” Melanie said. “Different ones for each communication. Even if we run down an e-mail as soon as it comes in, he’ll be gone by the time we get people over there.”

  “What about the e-mail address?” Sam asked. “Partysover2007@ yahoo.com? Have we investigated who holds that account?”

  “That’s the first thing the FBI did,” Melanie replied. “Yahoo’s a free service. They don’t require address verification to send a bill. The name and address used were false. We did learn that the account was opened only thirteen days ago, for what it’s worth.”

  “Does the e-mail address itself mean anything to either of you?” Sam asked.

  “Party’s over?” Mark said. “It sounds like he plans to put an end to somebody’s fun.”

  “Yeah. Like mine,” Melanie said.

  The guys laughed, but she didn’t.

  “Hmm, well…is there some way to get him to tell us his location?” Sam continued. “I mean, here we sit, three of the most skilled questioners in America. We should be able to come up with a clever way of asking.”

  “What question could we ask that he wouldn’t see through?” Melanie asked.

  “He’d have to be an idiot to fall for that,” Mark said. “Besides, we’d risk scaring him off. Whatever message we send has to be carefully crafted to keep the lines of communication open.”

  “Maybe we should consider an e-mail wiretap,” Sam said.

  “Wiretaps tell us the content of his communications, not where he’s e-mailing from,” Mark said. “We already know what he’s saying, since he’s writing to Melanie.”

  “Wait a minute, I think that’s an interesting idea,” Melanie said. "What if the killer’s writing to other people, too? If we find out who he’s communicating with, what he’s saying to them, maybe we can identify him that way.”

  “Like if he’s writing to his aunt Flo in Peoria, we track down Aunt Flo,” Sam said.

  “That won’t work,” Mark insisted. “You’d be asking to intercept innocent people’s communications. What about Aunt Flo’s privacy rights? No judge would sign off on such a request.”

  “We limit our request to communications that reference the killer’s identity or location,” Melanie said.

  “Who knows, it just might fly,” Sam said.

  Mark frowned. “How long is Main Justice taking to turn around an authorization on an e-mail wire these days?”

  “If we’re lucky, a few days,” Melanie said. “With an unusual request like this, maybe closer to a week.” She sighed. “You’re right, I’m dead by then.”

  “No moping now,” Sam said. He gave Melanie’s shoulders a jaunty squeeze, like she was a prizefighter and he was her trainer. “We’re the feds. The bad guys never beat us. Mark here managed to outwit an entire Colombian cartel, and he’s not half as smart as you are, Melanie.”

  “Actually, Sam, I do consider myself half as smart as Melanie,” Mark said, deadpan.

  “You were threatened by the Colombians?” she asked.

  “Yeah, good story,” Mark said. “About five years back, we were up on a wire on this big cocaine cartel, and the agents called me up all excited because they’d intercepted a call about a murder plot. Our targets were negotiating for some C-4 to make a car bomb. So the agents bring me the transcript, and I’m sitting there reading along. The bad guys start talking about this Honda Civic they want to blow up. They give the plate number, and lo and behold, it’s my car.”

  “What happened to the Colombians?” Melanie asked.

  “Thirty to life, the scumbags, and it was better than they deserved,” he said.

  “No, I mean how did you catch them?” she said.

  “Oh, we set up a sting. We used my car as bait. Lured the
m out.”

  They all looked at one another.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Melanie, but in this case, the bait wouldn’t be a car,” Mark said. “The bait would be you.”

  “It’s the obvious next step, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Put you out there with a panic button to push when the Butcher shows up?” Sam said. “No way. You could be killed. This office isn’t losing any assistants on my watch.”

  “That’s a job for agents, not prosecutors,” Mark said.

  “Gentlemen, I’m divorced and I have a daughter to raise,” Melanie said. “I’m not looking to take foolish risks. But this lunatic is after me anyway, and I want him caught. Can’t we come up with something more controlled? A scenario where we lure him to a specific place, and I have protection?”

  “You can have protection without doing a sting,” Mark said. “I’m calling in the Marshal’s Service the second we’re done here.”

  “It’s my safety at stake, and I’d rather be proactive than sit around and wait for the ax to fall,” Melanie insisted.

  “Look, I respect that,” Sam said.

  “Me, too,” Mark said, “but we’d also understand if you were reluctant to take this kind of chance. In fact, we’d think you were smart.”

  “You’re missing the point,” she said. “I’m already in danger. I’ve been in danger for a while now. The Butcher fixated on me after seeing me talking about him on TV, the morning after Suzanne Shepard’s murder, but we just didn’t realize it. He hasn’t gone away, and he’s not going to.”

  “You’re right,” Sam said. “By e-mailing him, what you accomplished was outing the threat. Now we know your cyberstalker is the Butcher. And we know the Butcher is serious about attacking you.”

  “We also know what he’s capable of. That’s why I want to get out in front of the problem,” Melanie said.

  Sam turned to Mark. “If that’s how Melanie feels, maybe it’s worth you talking to the FBI about a sting.”

  “Can’t hurt,” Mark agreed. “I’ll find out what they think and what the logistics would be. Who’s the supervisor of the squad that’s working this case, Melanie?”

  “Mike Fagin.”

  “Don’t call him,” Sam said. “I know the guy, he’s got shit for brains. Who’s the case agent?”

  A noise at the door made them all look over. The case agent was standing there, and he did not look happy.

  “I heard you’re e-mailing with the Butcher,” Dan said, glaring at Melanie, ignoring the powerful men who stood beside her. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”

  37

  Half an hour later, Melanie took her seat at the head of the long table in the windowless conference room down the hall and called the team meeting to order. She’d succeeded in convincing Dan that luring the Butcher into the open was a better option than sitting by and waiting for him to find her. Dan had already set somebody from the tech squad to work on tracing the last e-mail, the one in which the Web stalker had confirmed that he was indeed the Central Park Butcher. Now, as the lead FBI agent on the case, Dan had primary responsibility for formulating an ops plan. Many of the cops and agents who’d showed up for the meeting had been sent home, so that the only personnel remaining were those with direct contributions to this critical phase of their investigation. They planned to play the sting operation close to the vest and watch out for leaks.

  “As I see it, we have three priorities,” Melanie said. “We need a strategy for how to lure the Butcher out from under his rock. We need a meeting place that the FBI deems suitable for a surveillance and capture operation. And we need to pull together our evidence on the Butcher’s physical description so we know who we’re looking for.”

  “I can help with that last part,” piped up a petite woman with a poodle perm sitting midway down the table. “Terri Landry, United States postal inspector. I’m in charge of investigating the threatening package Suzanne Shepard received.”

  “You took over from Target News security?” Melanie asked.

  “That’s right. We have jurisdiction under the threat by mail statute. Okay, quick background. Suzanne Shepard received a box of dog excrement in the mail two days before her murder. The box also contained a ripped-up Polaroid taken by somebody who was following her. Yesterday, we were able to confirm that the Butcher himself sent the package. The lab reported that the package was sealed with the same tape used to gag Suzanne Shepard during the attack. Contiguous pieces from the same roll.”

  “Wasn’t there was a surveillance camera in the post office where the package was mailed from?” Melanie asked.

  “Yes, and we’ve reviewed the tape,” Terri said. “Unfortunately, the date and time stamp were screwed up, so we weren’t able to reconstruct the time frame down to the exact minute. But I can show you photos of six males with large builds who were in that post office at approximately the time the package was mailed. The camera was at an angle and the image quality isn’t terrific, but it’s the best we’ve got. Here goes.”

  A projector and screen had been set up, and Terri shut off the lights. One after the other, grainy black-and-white stills of men standing in line at the post office flashed on the screen. The men’s faces were blurry, but the hairs on Melanie’s neck still bristled as each image appeared. One of these men was the Central Park Butcher, and he wanted to kill her. But which one? The muscular guy with the bandanna and leather jacket? The strange one with the weird mustache? The strung-out-looking guy with greasy hair? It could be any of them.

  “Stop,” somebody called out. “Go back to that last one.”

  Terri clicked back to the previous image, which showed a large, moonfaced man in his thirties or forties with close-cropped light hair. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt that said WE DELIVER FRESH FOOD FAST.

  “Well?” Terri Landry asked.

  “I don’t recognize the guy, but I recognize the shirt,” the agent said.

  “Your name?” Melanie asked.

  “Special Agent Tim Crockett, FBI. I’m from Dan O’Reilly’s squad.”

  “Delivery guys all over town wear that shirt,” Mark Sonschein observed. He was sitting at the foot of the long table, opposite from Melanie. “It’s from that chain soup place.”

  “I feel like I saw it recently, while I was on the job,” Crockett said.

  “Go through your surveillance notes,” Dan suggested. “See if you come up with anything concrete.”

  “Will do,” Crockett said.

  “In the meantime, let’s mark that picture for special attention,” Melanie said. “We’ll show it to David Harris when he regains consciousness. Can we compare it to mug shots of known sex offenders?” Melanie asked.

  “The Bureau can do that by computer,” Dan said. “We have special software that scans the photos in, sorts ’em by basic facial characteristics, and compares ’em to mug shots. Unfortunately, you probably need better images to work with than what we got here. But we’ll give it a shot anyway, see what we get.”

  “Is this really all we have on the killer’s physical description and identity after so many days of investigation?” Mark Sonschein asked.

  “Only three days,” Dan said, annoyed.

  “We’ve ruled out a bunch of our early suspects,” Melanie explained. “We have one guy left who seems really fishy, but even he has a valid alibi.”

  She gave Mark a brief rundown of what they’d learned about Dr. Benedict Welch, including the fact that he was living under a false identity, had orchestrated the burglary of Suzanne Shepard’s apartment, was involved in a big meth operation and might be connected to the murder of a stripper in Los Angeles years earlier.

  “As soon as David Harris is conscious, I plan to show him Welch’s photograph,” Melanie said. “I’ll also show him the photos from the post office surveillance video. Hopefully he’ll be able to recognize the Butcher, either from the night of the murder or from when he was kidnapped last night.”

  “What about the newspaper ar
ticles your cooperator saw, about the old murder? That sounded like a hot lead,” Mark said.

  “We don’t have much to go on,” Melanie said. “I can assign somebody to do an online search for all murders of strippers that occurred in the Los Angeles area between twelve and fifteen years ago. But we don’t have a victim’s name, or the name of the man who was convicted.”

  “Do it anyway,” Mark said. “Any results you get can be shown to your cooperator. Who knows, maybe something rings a bell.”

  “Okay.”

  As they turned back to discussing the sting plan, Dan got a call on his cell phone from the FBI tech squad. They’d managed to trace the most recent e-mail to a computer in a public library in the East Thirties.

  “What’s he doing there? I thought we had him pinned down to Queens,” Melanie said.

  “There’s a Little India in that part of Murray Hill. Maybe he’s going out for Indian food,” somebody suggested. A couple of people laughed nervously.

  “He’s getting smart, is what he’s doing,” Dan said. “He figures he needs to change up in order to avoid detection.”

  “He is smart,” Melanie said. “So how do we come up with a hook that he’ll fall for?”

  Dan, Lieutenant Deaver, and some of the other agents began batting around ideas for meet locations. They wanted somewhere well lit, with clear lines of sight, not too many civilians around, but enough cover so that a surveillance team could set up without attracting attention. The problem was, everyplace they suggested seemed certain to arouse the Butcher’s suspicions. When they started talking about the piers in Brooklyn, Melanie had had enough.

  “You’re doing a good job of convincing me this whole idea won’t work,” she said. “What am I supposed to say to the guy? ‘Meet me at the piers at midnight. I’ll come alone.’ He’d have to be brain-dead to agree to that.”

  “She’s got a point,” Sonschein said.

  “We need to be subtle if we want him to take the bait,” she said. “We should propose a place he expects me to go anyway, like my office or the courthouse. And I should just let it slip that I’m planning to be there, like it’s an accident. That’s our only hope.”