Roger just smiled and said, “Jack is making quite a sacrifice for this investigation, but it does come with some challenges.”
Roger’s phone rang again. It was Agent Thor. “Yeah Dan…. really?…. Damn, bad luck. Well, I just spoke to our M.E. yesterday, and he is going nuts already. Do you have any pull with Grand Rapids? I know, you have pull everywhere. Well, I’m in the middle of something on our side of this case but keep me posted,” and he snapped his phone shut. Roger looked at the St. Joseph agents who were listening and said, “Be grateful you are here. Dan just found a body at the first house he went to.”
There was a collective, “Shit,” and Roger left the room.
Paul joined Roger in the hall outside of Roger’s office. Paul looked in, but there was no cat. Paul looked at Roger, “Do you think someday we will sit down over a couple of beers and remember when a black cat was our boss?” They started walking out from the building to go to the hospital.
Roger laughed, “If we ever get through this case. Dan just found number one. I can tell he is pissed he’ll have to do the work up on it.” They were in the parking lot going toward Roger’s car.
Paul opened the passenger door and said, “Wait until about five o’clock tonight.”
Paul asked at the reception desk at the hospital how to find the critical care unit and was given directions. As he and Roger rode the elevator to the third floor, Roger said, “Sal and John were pretty lucky. You ever heard of a tunnel before?”
Paul looked at him, “Nope.”
“Why do you think he torched the place?”
Paul pushed his chin forward and answered, “He may be thinking we would get there eventually, and he had to have left DNA everywhere at that place.”
Roger said, “Or he may be in his final stage of frenzy.”
Paul looked at him, “Or that.”
They walked down the hall to room 342 where Detective Ed Mars was waiting outside in the hall. Detective Mars pointed, “She’s in there.” Paul and Roger walked around the beige curtain and almost gasped. She was a skeleton. Her eyes looked so sunken. She motioned them over and even offered up a weak smile.
Roger cleared his throat and said, “We will not stay long. We want you to rest and get better. The officer in the hall will get information from you later. Can you look at some pictures, and tell us if you see the man that kidnapped you?” Her eyes were tearing up, but she nodded yes. Paul pulled out an 8× 10 paper that had six photos of men’s faces. He handed it to her, and she pointed at Devon right away.
Roger asked, “Did this man also rape you?” She nodded yes. Roger thanked her, and stood up. She grabbed his sleeve. She was whispering, and Roger strained to hear. He thought she said but he’s not the man who stopped feeding me. Roger said, “There was another man that knew you were in that house?” She nodded. Roger continued, “He was in charge of feeding you?” she nodded. Roger said, “Did he rape you too?” She shook her head.
Paul gave her the page again, “Is that man’s picture here?”
Paul and Roger looked at each other, what if she picks Jack? She handed the picture back to Paul. She shook her head. They thanked her and asked Ed if he could stay for about another hour, get what information he could from her, and arrange a replacement. They wanted him back at the center. Roger asked at the nurse’s station if Jenny Camp was there. One of the nurses said she was down the hall and should be back in a minute. Roger said “Thank you.” Then he looked to Paul, “We have to keep this gal out of the news.” Jenny Camp walked to the nurse’s station and saw them.
Roger motioned for her to come over to where he and Paul were standing, and she did. “Jenny, I have a huge favor to ask of you.”
Jenny said, “Of course, anything.”
Roger explained, “The woman in room 342 is a victim of our murderer. Only she got lucky. I have to keep her out of the news. He can’t find out she is alive, or two other hostages may get killed. Our investigation is at a critical point. Can you come up with some kind of cover story on her? Just for a couple of days? If you have a supervisor that will need to talk to me, that is fine, I gave you my card. Please let her know what we are doing too if you would.” Jenny said she would do her best, even if it meant her sleeping in the woman’s room to protect her. Roger and Paul thanked her and left.
On the ride down the elevator they were silent. They got to the car, and Paul said, “We have two do-ers.”
Roger said, “Yup. Let’s stop at the PUB and have Larry fix a dozen or so burgers we can take to Dan’s guys. They are going to need it. They won’t have any time to leave.” Paul agreed. When they got to the Pub, they gave Larry their ‘to-go’ order and had burgers themselves while they waited. They were not too sure the next time they would get a chance to eat. Roger called Dan and told him they would drop off food to his guys if he gave them the addresses of where they were. Roger wrote the addresses down.
Dan asked, “You heard we have found three now?”
“Three?” Roger tried to sound surprised, “I’m glad we are bringing you food. We should be there in about twenty.” He hung up.
Paul said, “You didn’t say goodbye.” They both started laughing.
“Man,” Roger was rubbing his neck again. “We have another guy, but he didn’t kidnap her or rape her? He was supposed to keep her alive? What for? Why bother? Devon has a partner in this for a reason. Let’s just hope he has been printed before, and we get lucky.”
Paul said, “You mean hope Thor and the CSI get lucky.”
Larry brought the burgers out and said, “An order this big usually means things are real good, or things are real bad.” Paul said, “Or, we really like your burgers!” Larry smiled as he rang up their bill.
It only took a few minutes to locate the Indy guys. Then they went to the third location to find Agent Dan Thor. Dan was in the front yard with EMT guys waving his arms, red faced, and shouting. Paul moaned, “Oh brother, he’s all yours.”
Thor saw Roger and Paul pull up. He came over to their car and yelled, “Nobody wants to drive to Grand Rapids.” Roger asked him to give him a minute. He excused himself to get back into his car and make a call. He called the director. After about five minutes Roger joined them again.
He spoke to Dan, “I have been told to tell you, you should be receiving more cooperation shortly.”
Dan said thanks, unwrapped a burger, and one of the EMT guys walked over, “Agent Thor?”
Dan glared at him, “Yeah?”
“I was told to give you this phone number and tell you we will drive to Egypt if that is what you need, Sir. Transportation arrangements are being made for your needs on a standby basis. I am sorry Sir. I didn’t mean to sound disrespectful.”
Thor took the number and said, “Thanks.” He looked at Roger and said, “You got some serious connections boy,” and kept eating his burger. “These are damn good. I know you didn’t have any way of knowing what we were walking into, but.” he was shaking his head. He frowned at Roger and said, “I look at this e-mail you get at 8:47 (He was waving the list Roger had given him), ten minutes after I convince you to give me these damn death houses! You got angels.” Roger and Paul glanced at each other. He wadded up the burger wrapper, took another one and said, “You want to see what I have in here?” He started walking back up to the house.
Paul stayed outside with the EMT guys to get their impression of the scene, and so he could view the victim. When her face was uncovered, there was only the slightest hint she may have been beautiful. He made a note to get missing person’s records from the entire surrounding area. Had these women been reported missing or not? Sandy said Devon used the phrase he was going ‘shopping.’
Paul was trying to pull something from his memory, hadn’t Claudia, Devon’s secretary said he went to a lot of funerals? Roger had said the senior center gal made a reference to that also. Could he be ‘shopping’ at funerals for victims? If he had a conversation with them at a funeral, their guard would be down, and t
hey would probably assume he was a good guy. Sick bastard.
Roger and Agent Thor were out of the house and standing near the front door. Paul saw Thor answer his phone and swing around to glare at Roger. He screamed into the phone, “Another one? What the.” He clicked his phone shut. He looked at Roger and said, “With your original six, yesterday’s gal, and my four, we’ve got eleven women. Plus he is holding two? These gals have been dead a while. This isn’t new for this guy. This crap didn’t start in November. You want to place a bet where this ends up today?” He wasn’t being flip. He was worried.
Roger said, “I wouldn’t bet against you on this, Dan.”
Paul walked over to where they were standing, and Agent Thor turned to him, “I understand you have a personal interest in our judge.” The bluntness of the question took Paul by surprise.
Paul answered, “I used to. She is a great gal.”
Thor asked, “What happened?” Paul knew that Thor had the right to ask, to make sure there wasn’t any sinister relationship between Devon and him, or any revenge issues with Ashley.
Paul took a deep breath and answered, “I think it was more what didn’t happen. I just didn’t make enough time for her. We just stopped calling each other.”
Thor said, “Casualty of employment.”
Paul answered, “Yup.”
Thor shrugged, “I have four ex- wives that could relate to that.” He walked away.
In the car driving back to the center Paul said, “Do you believe that four women married him?”
* * *
Chief Doyle was waiting for Roger when he walked in the door of the center. “Thank God you are here! Any way we can move up the press release to like NOW? You’ve got to understand the heat I am getting from everywhere. You can’t turn on the news, without them showing our guys taking a body out of a vacant house! My phones have jammed, twice! I won’t even tell you what the mayor said!”
Roger said, “I’ll go you one better and do a Press Conference. They can ask me questions.” Roger knew he was taking a risk, but he had to get this case moving in his direction. Roger said, “Contact your media people, and tell them we will be out front in thirty minutes. It’s cold out there, and that might help this stay short.” Roger went into his office to call the director. He had promised to keep him up to date. Once the real story of the total crimes of Devon emerged, he knew this case would be reviewed for years as a case study, and he wanted the file pristine.
Paul had started sending FBI bulletins to surrounding jurisdictions requesting information on missing women as far back as August. He was amazed at the calls that started coming in instantly. Funerals would draw people from out of town and delay identifying victims, but not forever. Devon had to be close to leaving the country. Devon’s partner might already be gone. Maybe that was why he stopped feeding the women? The heat was on, and Ashley was in the middle of it.
Jack knocked on the door of the office Paul was using. Paul said, “Hey, Jack! I bet you think we’ve forgotten all about you.”
Jack smiled, “I should be so lucky. Can I sit a minute?” Paul said sure, and Jack plopped down with the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I have been practicing talking to Devon in the mirror in my bathroom.”
Paul laughed, “How is that going?”
Jack looked serious, “I don’t know. I’m worried I might screw this up.”
Paul thought a moment and said, “When you were drinking heavily, did anyone ever accuse you of something and you thought there was a chance they were right, but you argued that it wasn’t true?”
Jack smiled, “Probably weekly.”
Paul said, “See? You are an actor, but I don’t think you are the one that has to act today.”
Jack was thoughtful. “I didn’t do it for real. I didn’t do it! And he is going to be acting like he is helping me, right?”
“Exactly, he is the one who has to act today, not you.”
Jack said, “That makes it easier for me. I can do this!” He smiled and left the room. Paul was thinking, oh please Lord, and he watched Ellen follow Jack down the hall.
* * *
CHAPTER 22
* * *
Sandy threw up in the car when Devon set the house on fire. He turned on to some country road and made her get out of the car while he threw away the floor mat. He made her clean the seat with hand wipes while he watched for traffic. Even though it was only thirty degrees outside, he had all of the windows down. He kept calling her a bitch. She didn’t care. All she could think about was Sal and John dying in that fire because they were helping her. She looked at Devon with the morning light that was on his face. He didn’t look right. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he looked more unkempt than usual. His facial expression was an unnatural looking stare, intense. His eyes kept darting around, and he wasn’t blinking. She wondered if he wasn’t taking some kind of drugs.
She knew she had to pay attention to where they were going in case she got a chance to call Agent Dance. The phone was ice cold in her bra. Agent Dance had told her to leave it off to conserve battery life. Maybe she could just turn it on every now and then for a minute. Devon stopped the car, reached into the back seat, and pulled a pillow case to the front. He glared at her, “Get your fat ass down on the floor board, and put this on your head! NOW!” Sandy did as he said and was surprised how dark it was with the pillow case over her head. She had hoped she could see through it. They drove for a while making a lot of turns, and Sandy could tell from the noise they were back in traffic. They had to wait at a couple of lights, a couple of more turns, and he stopped the car.
He pulled the pillow case off her head, “I am going to come around and open your door. You are going to get out of this car and into this new car. I will have the door open. You will keep your eyes shut, and you will get back onto the floorboard. Got if?” Sandy nodded. He moved her to the other car, and while he was walking around to the driver’s side she looked at everything she could outside. They were at the Mall.
Teresa and I were checking on cars at the mall. Ellen had told us to look for certain plate numbers. It was only mid-day and the parking lot was already full. People were returning Christmas presents. Teresa said she wanted the JC Penny side of the mall because that was her favorite store, so I was flying around the Macy’s side. Out of the corner of her eye Teresa saw a woman crawl from one car into another. She was at the far edge of the mall lot where employees parked, and there was a high berm protecting the cars from view from the highway. Teresa called me, “I’ve got something weird over here.” She told me about the woman and how the man driving looked like Devon. In seconds Teresa and I were hovering over the car like helicopters.
I said, “What is he doing?”
Teresa flew down to the driver’s window and said, “He’s trying keys out. There is a woman sitting on the floorboard with some kind of sheet or something on her head! It is probably Sandy.” Devon looked right at Teresa. She knew he couldn’t see her but it scared her. “SHIT! He’s one ugly dude.”
“What do we do now?”
Teresa said, “Let me think a minute. I want to be sure we don’t manipulate. That fire kind of convinced me things could be a lot worse for us.” I had to agree with that. I couldn’t imagine what the classes were like in Hell. I was having issues in Heaven!
Devon started the car and put it into reverse. Teresa said, “If we do something that will make him mad, he might hurt Sandy. The FBI guys were hoping he would lead them to where the judge is. I say we just follow them.”
“Good call.” We flew about five feet over the car for about twenty minutes when Devon started fishing around in a paper bag pulling out garage door openers. He was looking for one in particular.
Teresa said, “We must be close. Find out what street we’re on.”
I flew back to the street sign, and as I turned around I heard a big WHOOSH sound. Oh not again! Sure enough, I was back in the mall parking lot. One second later Teresa was next to me.<
br />
“That was fun.”
Teresa frowned at me and said, “I’ll tell you later. Let’s go back and find them.” We found the street sign and searched for fifteen minutes. Finally, we sat under a tree on a split rail fence and called Ellen.
I heard Teresa explaining she was so worried about hitting a wrong button on her watch that she touched one to make sure it wasn’t pulled out. Problem was that button was supposed to be pulled out, and she and I went back in time again. Ellen explained it wasn’t the no-no button but a close cousin. She ended that it wasn’t Teresa’s fault. They needed to find a better system for us. Whew! Ellen was happy that at least we had a general area where Devon probably was, and we knew Sandy was still alive. Ellen told Teresa we should join up with Mary and Linda at the county clerk’s office. Turns out the documents they were trying to get were going to be very important.
Ellen called Kim and asked her to call Roger with the update. Roger thanked Kim for the information and tried to decide how to best use it. He called the patrol assigned at the mall and told him to look specifically for the white Volkswagen. Then he called Paul to come in if he had a minute. “How fast can we get the tracer on Sandy’s cell? That’s what he’s using, and his home phone?”
Paul answered, “One phone call. We did the red tape yesterday.”
Roger told Paul about Kim’s call and said, “I am going to change the order of things. I am going to call Devon now and tell him as a courtesy we are notifying him in advance of the press conference. Kim’s mom and her friend had a location on him minutes ago with Sandy in the car…. a trace right now might tell us a lot.”
Paul said, “Go for it.” He left the room to make his call. He was back in a minute, and Roger dialed Devon’s office number. Roger was pretty sure he would get the answering machine, but Devon picked up, “Attorney Devon.”
Roger’s eyebrow rose, “Attorney Devon, this is Special Agent Dance, FBI. We met at your office a couple of days ago.” Roger clicked his pen repeatedly.
Alcohol Was Not Involved : A Shallow End Gals Trilogy Page 20