by Rachel Lucas
“What do we know so far?” Logan asked after a brief greeting. I could tell he didn’t like being kept in the dark and was anxious to find out all that he could.
“Come this way,” Phillips motioned, pointing towards a set of matching buildings off to the left. We followed him towards what seemed to be the stables. We could hear the restless horses inside, whinnying at having all the strangers around. I expected to go to the front entrance of the building, but instead, we stopped at the side of the building where a small area was sectioned off by police tape.
“It was after the last race last night that the stable hands and the maintenance crew were cleaning up for the night. One of them noticed this.”
I took a few steps closer then stopped in my tracks. There, on the light gray wall was the now familiar symbol written in blood.
It was about six inches tall, deliberately meant to be seen, to be found.
“Maintenance alerted security who in turn contacted the local police,” Phillips continued his explanation. “On the off chance I was wrong about California, I sent some information to the authorities here. They recognized the symbol right away and immediately began a search of the premises. As you can see, though, there is a lot of ground to cover here, and it was in the middle of the night.”
I looked around at the large racing complex and grounds, understanding what a challenge the search must have been.
Director Phillips then led us away from the stables, past the main entrance and through the public parking area. Most of the parking lot was closed off by police tape and it looked as though the local and federal officers were still processing the few remaining vehicles in the lot. We then followed him across the access road to a line of trees and undergrowth.
A local CSI unit was still examining the area that was sectioned off by more tape. The medical examiner’s van was parked nearby, waiting to take away the victim.
“It was a local K-9 unit that discovered the body,” Phillips continued as we neared the area.
The body was still at the scene and I braced myself for what I was about to see. Logan took my arm, hesitant to let me go any further. It was then that I heard the click of the stretcher and realized that the victim was already in a black body bag and was being lifted onto the stretcher for transport. Once Logan realized the same thing, he loosened his grip and walked closer with me.
The forensics team was taking samples in a small area near some weeds and bushes and other officers were combing the tree line looking for more clues.
“We think the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head,” I carefully walked around the area as Phillips continued, “we’ll know more after the autopsy. He was severely beaten to the point that we won’t be able to get an ID from his face. Any wallet or picture identification must have been taken. We’re running a scan on his fingerprints to see if we can get anything from them. We’re also going over any vehicles left in the parking lot to see if one might be his.”
I noticed several dark areas on the ground that looked like still-drying blood. The damp ground and humidity seemed to be slowing the drying process.
I couldn’t help stopping as they loaded the body into the van and securely shut the doors. Within that black plastic bag was a human, a real person. One that had been badly beaten to death by someone I knew. It wasn’t like a scary movie or a murder mystery. The man inside that bag had been alive only hours ago. Now, his life was over, a final act that could never be undone.
“Why a race track?” Madeline had been quiet most of the time but now spoke up. “Do you think is has any significance Caitlyn?”
I shook my head, confused.
“Nothing I can connect to any of the family members.”
“It could just be the victim,” Logan guessed. “He might have just been here enjoying a night at the races and that left him exposed.”
“Have there been any other clues?” I asked hopefully. She had left notes and other small signs for me before.
“Not that we’ve found so far,” Phillips answered, “but we’re still looking. Perhaps, once we get an ID on the suspect, we –“
“Hey, I think I have something here,” one of the local officers called from the dense brush about forty yards away where he had been searching.
We followed Director Phillips over to where the young officer stood. He held up two small scraps of paper in one gloved hand. The director took a closer look.
“Betting tickets from the racetrack,” he explained, “dated yesterday. The name on the ticket is George Walker. Let’s run a check on that name.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
A storm front was coming in from the northwest. The skies were rapidly turning gray and heavy and the wind was picking up. Rain and storms were a frequent thing in this part of the country, but for some reason this storm seemed darker, heavier as it approached.
After walking over much of the grounds of the racetrack, we realized that there wasn’t much more we could do at the crime scene so Director Phillips decided to head for the local police department to wait for word on an ID.
It was a small police department, about the size of the one back home in Riverview. Having federal agents walking around seemed to make the resident officers a bit jumpy. They were probably all wondering why the feds were being brought in on a local homicide. I had always seen it portrayed in movies that local authorities didn’t like having federal agents brought in, that it was invading their territory in some way. In my experience so far, though, at each crime scene I had been at, the area authorities had been very cooperative with Director Phillips.
Logan and the director were in the police chief’s office coordinating the search for the identity of the victim. Madeline sat on a chair outside in the hallway, her small computer propped up in her lap, doing several searches herself.
“According to the local white pages, there are three men locally with the name George Walker and thirteen more in the surrounding towns and cities,” she explained as I paced back and forth in front of her.
I felt helpless, useless. Once again I found myself wondering what I was doing here on this crazy manhunt. I didn’t have the training these other agents and officers had. I didn’t have Madeline’s degrees or her years with the FBI. I really didn’t know the first thing about tracking down a wanted fugitive. I didn’t have a laptop handy like she did. I didn’t even have anything besides my phone that had access to the internet, let alone any special federal agent access or websites.
“Should we start making phone calls?” I suggested.
“I’m certain they already have people on it,” Madeline assured. “Does that name sound familiar to you in any way?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose in concentration, wracking my brain for any memories of anyone with that name. I tried to think through classmates from junior high through high school. I tried to think about neighbors, other students in her karate dojo, or any patients at the hospital she might have mentioned. No one came to mind. That name was as generic to me as John Smith.
“No, it just doesn’t ring a bell,” I said with a long sigh. An ache was creeping in behind my eyes and I was hoping it wasn’t going to be a migraine.
“Well, it might not be the victim’s name anyway.” She continued typing away on her laptop, rarely looking up from the screen. “It would almost seem too simple if it was.”
Simple? I thought to myself. When had anything in this confusing, terrifying situation with Lisbeth been simple? I had been brought in as a “special consultant” because of my history with her, but I was fast realizing that my “history” with her might be useless when she was changing in to someone I wasn’t even sure I knew.
I looked up to see Logan and Director Phillips coming out of the local police chief’s office. Special Agent Moreno was close by as well as a few of the members of the King and Pierce County sheriff’s departments.
“Anything new?” Madeline asked the director in a low voice.
“The vict
im’s hands were damaged,” Phillips explained as we walked down the hall towards the department’s briefing room, “we think it was done intentionally to slow down the identification process. The medical examiner is having a hard time getting any good prints to check against the data base. We have several federal and local officers as well as dispatch trying to reach all the George Walkers anywhere in the area. It could take a while. Even if that was the victim’s real name, he might not be local. He could be a tourist for all we know.”
“If Elizabeth came this far just to kill him, he must be a local, she wouldn’t have known where to find him otherwise,” my unplanned comment was met with surprise by some of the local officers but with a small smile from the director.
“You’re right, Caitlyn,” he acknowledged with a nod, “that’s what we’re counting on. That’s why we’re preparing a story to go out on the local news.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Logan stood beside me this time as we watched the director and the Auburn City police chief do the news conference. I could tell Logan was relieved not to be in front of the cameras during this new story.
The decision was made before they went on air to make the story more about asking for help from the general public to try to find the identity of the victim than to talk about a serial killer on the loose.
Some of the maintenance crew from the racetrack must have already talked to the media. It didn’t take long for one of the local reporters to ask about the symbol found on the stable wall and to ask about its significance, if it related to any other recent crimes.
The director was a pro at dodging questions he didn’t want to answer and trying to keep the focus on the homicide victim. He announced that they had set up a hotline to report any information the general public might have about the unknown victim.
There wasn’t much to go on. There was little physical description the authorities could release because he had been beaten so badly. There was no ID. He was wearing a black pull-over shirt, jeans and a common brand of running shoes. The medical Examiner was guessing an age somewhere between twenty-five and forty. He seemed to be Caucasian with short brown hair and clean-shaven. That description could match countless people.
After the news conference we went back into the police department’s briefing room where two long tables had been set up with several phones at each table. There were local and federal authorities at each phone waiting for them to ring.
It didn’t take long for the calls to start coming in. I tried not to pace or hover but I really wanted to know what was being said on the calls. I watched the officers and federal agents take down careful notes as they tried to record what each caller was saying. They were also trained to ask the right questions, to get the most information out of each call.
My first instinct was to jump and react whenever there was information that looked to be helpful in the case. I just wanted to go with the nearest federal agent and track down and investigate every lead that came in. It was Madeline that explained to me that in situations like this, they had to very carefully field every piece of information that was called in. Although every call needed to be taken seriously, I learned that it was very common for people to make false reports. Most often it was people who wanted the attention, or they simply thought it was someone they had seen at the gas station the day before and were just trying to be helpful.
Officers and agents were dispatched to follow up on any good leads that were called in. We waited there at headquarters hoping we would get word that one of the leads would be useful.
Again, a waiting game.
The news conference ran again on the evening news and the number of phone calls increased again afterwards.
There was a promising lead when a woman reported that her boyfriend was missing. The description seemed similar, but as it turned out, he was really at another woman’s house and the girlfriend was just trying to get revenge.
On and on the day went, a rollercoaster of emotions as calls came in that seemed useful, we thought we might have the mystery solved, then the information didn’t pan out and our hopes were dashed. It was exhausting.
As the evening wore on, Director Phillips took a much needed break and sat down on a chair next to me along the wall of the briefing room. I had tried to keep a low profile and stay out of the way but he noticed me anyway. He handed me a bottle of cold water and gave me a steady look.
“How are you holding up?” He sounded casual as he looked around the busy briefing room instead of looking directly at me, but I knew he was interested in my answer.
“About the same as everyone else,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders, “just waiting for the right call to come in with the right information.”
“What I was wondering was how it felt?” He was looking at me now. He had that same clear, steady gaze that could be so unnerving.
I didn’t reply right away, I wasn’t certain what he was referring to. He must have sensed my confusion.
“This is a job for the rest of us. We have no emotional connections. For you though, it’s personal. This is about someone that was a part of your life.” He let out a deep sigh. “This can’t be easy on you.”
I looked across the room at Logan. He had been speaking to Agent Moreno and had noticed my conversation with the director and was looking this way. His presence was a comfort to me.
“I’ve been trying to keep the personal side of this in the background, compartmentalize I guess. I’m trying to just focus on finding her, so there won’t be any more victims.” Besides, I thought to myself but was afraid to say aloud, if I dwelt too deeply on the personal side of this nightmare, I might just end up as crazy as Lisbeth.
“That’s probably for the best,” he agreed with a nod. “Although, if you need someone to talk to, Dr. Reynolds might prove helpful.”
“Maddie’s been great,” I gave him a tired smile. And she had been. She was never more than a few yards away from me. She was efficient at filtering the information that was coming in through the phone lines, helping to determine if it was a legitimate lead or not. She was also good at explaining to me what it was like running a hotline like this since she had been a part of several other cases where they had generated hotlines to get information from the general public.
“That’s good, it was one of the reasons I requested her on this investigation,” he watched the tiny woman as she darted back and forth between the people manning the phones, “I thought she would be helpful to you in trying to figure out…”
He stopped mid-sentence, interrupted by the buzz of his cell phone. He answered, spoke only a few words then signaled to Logan, his face lighting up.
“We have a hit. The ME was finally able to get a good print. The victim has been identified. He was arrested previously for a misdemeanor in another state. His fingerprints came up in AFIS. He lives close by. We’re heading over to the townhomes now.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Director Phillips was right, the drive wasn’t far. A few of the news crews that had been keeping an eye on the department since the news conference had noticed several police and federal vehicles leaving at the same time and had decided to follow.
We weren’t far from the main part of town when we turned into a large rental complex. It was filled with several rows of two-story townhomes side by side. They were gray brick with white siding and trim. The area was a nice, quiet neighborhood, the kind you would expect to see children playing at the nearby playground and young mothers pushing strollers.
There were already a few officers from the local police department there. The red and blue flashing lights from their cars reflected off the surrounding buildings in the dim evening light.
As we pulled into the parking lot, Phillips explained that they had already found blood on the door to the victim’s townhome but had yet to enter it. He wanted Madeline and I to stay in the SUV until the scene was cleared.
I wasn’t about to argue with him.
As more
officers arrived, they surrounded the ground level entrance to the townhome and made certain they had an officer at each window just in case the suspect was inside and tried to escape.
Madeline and I watched, our breath held, as Logan and Director Phillips tried the door, found it unlocked then entered the residence. Local residents started noticing all the armed authorities. People were peeking out their windows and coming to their doors, cell phones out to take pictures and videos. I could already see this as the lead story on the local nightly news.
There were several tense moments when everything was frozen, quiet as they did a thorough search of the scene. I held my breath, not knowing what to expect. Would they find Lisbeth inside? Would it be another bloody murder scene? Was she cornered or had she already escaped? It seemed as though hours passed though it couldn’t have been more than several minutes.
I let out my breath as I saw Director Phillips step out of the residence and call the “all clear”. Logan wasn’t far behind him when he stepped out and signaled to me and Madeline to stay where we were in the SUV. I looked at Madeline in question.
“They’re just preserving the scene until forensics arrives,” she assured me.
I nodded and tried not to show how frayed my nerves were getting. I sat on my hands to keep from fidgeting. I felt so helpless, useless, sitting there doing nothing while the director and Logan came in and out of the townhome followed by just a few local agents. I watched as other officers arrived and were sent to fan out around the rental complex, asking questions, searching for any witnesses.
I wasn’t certain if it was better to go inside and see the actual crime scene or to be left out here with my mind and imagination wondering just how bad it was inside. I had seen enough crime scenes lately to know that it could be a horrific scene. After several long, silent moments, I decided that it was better to see the reality than to be left guessing.
“Sometimes this can be the hardest part,” Madeline must have sensed my mood when she spoke, “at least for me it is. I feel much better being in action than to be left sitting idle. Give me something to do, anything. Once I have a task to do, I’m fine. But the sitting and waiting…”