by Nina Post
Shawn absorbed the sarcasm and held the line for two minutes.
"You're in luck -- they have the results on the samples." In a drier tone, the tech added, "the ME must like you. He made us push this through." He gave Shawn the taxonomical info on the moss and plant, then said, "We found a matching synthetic particle…"
Please be Tapeta Footings. Please be Tapeta Footings…
"It's something called Tapeta Footings."
Shawn pumped a fist in the air. "YES!!"
"Excuse me?"
"Which samples matched? The one with the moss?" A particle of Tapeta Footings, in Brower's moss garden and at Jasper's crime scene.
"Yes -- and from the Harmon crime scene," the tech said.
From Paul's crime scene, too. The techs must have vacuumed it from the shag. "Hey, thanks. Appreciate it."
"Sure, no -- "
Shawn hung up, wondering where he could do his victory dance. He walked quickly to the janitorial supply closet, shut the door behind him, and did a quick dance. Then he composed himself, went to the captain's office, and knocked on the glass. The captain beckoned him in.
"I want a search warrant."
"For what?" the captain reacted as though Shawn just requested a nuclear submarine.
"For the monastery."
The captain laughed. "You want a search warrant for a monastery? Are you kidding me?"
"No sir, I'm not kidding."
"That would be a PR nightmare," the captain muttered, running his hand through his gray hair.
"I want a search warrant for the interior of the buildings and one for the curtilage. Brower's hiding out at the monastery. The same synthetic particle was found at both the Stowe and Harmon scenes, and at the monastery. I was there yesterday and took a sample from the moss garden. Not only was the same geranium there, one the monks didn't even know about, but the lab identified the same synthetic particle in the moss sample that the soil scientist at Mercyhurst identified from the Stowe scene and that our lab techs analyzed from the Harmon scene."
"Whoa, Danger, slow down. What synthetic particle?"
"Tapeta Footings. It's used only at the Downs. Darcy Kehoe is opening a new Flagship Creamery at the Downs. Brower's hiding out at the monastery, he went to the Downs to see Darcy, and he tracked the same synthetic particle into Stowe's house. I also have a witness who saw a man I believe is Brower get into a white van."
Ashburn tapped a pen. "He got into a van at the monastery, huh?"
"No, off the grounds."
"I remember from the book that you went to the Downs and got CCTV footage. Did you find anything?"
"I went through that footage again and saw John Brower there on Friday, arguing with Darcy Kehoe. She went missing right after that."
"You recognized him?"
"I recognized her. I have a strong suspicion that the other figure was Brower, since he was praying."
Ashburn squinted, not understanding.
"When he's away from the abbey, he prays at the regular hours," Shawn told him.
Ashburn took in a deep breath and glowered for a minute. "Bring me the book."
Shawn went and got the book then put it on Ashburn's desk, hoping he wasn't about to toss it out the window or light it on fire. Ashburn put on his reading glasses and studied the book, flipping pages. A minute later, he looked up at Shawn over his glasses. "Not yet."
Shawn gave him a look.
"Give me something else, Detective, then maybe we can get a warrant. Find the van."
Shawn nodded and almost turned to leave. Ashburn held up a hand to stay him and frowned. "But I don't buy that the same perp did both sets of murders. Why would your suspect kill a couple of male vets he didn't know, with no apparent sexual motivation, and then kill two males he did know here in Erie?"
Shawn took the book back. "It does fit. The same means were used, and all of the autopsy measurements line up, indicating the same weapon was used in a similar way."
"The weapon we haven't found yet."
"The two murders here were more personal, and that's why he shaved them," Shawn said. "I spoke to the abbot at the monastery and he said that the practice was called tonsure. I think it may be an expression of sympathy or mourning for the victims."
"Why? He killed them, didn't he?"
"I don't know why. Jasper Stowe and Paul Harmon must have known a secret, stumbled across something they shouldn't have known, or threatened to expose him. But Brower evidently felt some remorse about it. His fantasy with the veterans would be symbolic retaliation. Any sexual release would probably happen after the fact, when he thinks about his power over someone who represents a complete loss of it to him."
"A TSA agent?"
Shawn chuckled. Look at that, the captain has a sense of humor.
"I wanted you in my unit because you're a good detective with a very high closure rate," Ashburn said. Shawn tensed, knowing criticism or some kind of ultimatum was about to follow. "But if you don't wrap up this investigation in twenty-four hours, too bad, because I'm going to put you on something else and putting this investigation in the vault as an unsolved." Shawn recoiled, appalled by the possibility. "I don't have endless money to spend."
Shawn wondered if that person he heard Ashburn talk to on the phone the other day was trying to fill the hole in their life with very expensive things.
***
During the next half-hour, he talked with traffic engineers and local government employees, and one of the engineers showed him a possible hit on a white van with some kind of sign on the left side.
If he could get a view of the van, of the plate, from any surveillance cameras leading from the Isle, maybe he'd find Brower. Of particular interest to him was any camera between Presque Isle and the monastery -- traffic cameras, bank and retail cameras, anything. He started with city and traffic cameras and hoped they'd be enough, because he didn't have the patience to deal with the corporate ones. Shawn had a death grip on the phone. "Can you zoom in?"
"That I can," the engineer said.
"Can you see a plate?"
"I can read the plate," the engineer said.
Shawn set the receiver down for a second, twined his fingers and brought his knuckles to his mouth. He shouldn't be popping open the champagne just yet. He fully expected that Brower would have the vehicle registered under an LLC, but what he really wanted was to get a photo and a plate, even if the ownership was concealed, have Dahl release both to the media, and maybe find the garage Brower used.
He sprung forward and grabbed the phone. "You still there?"
"Yep," the engineer said. "Having a moment of celebration?"
"Can you send -- "
"Already done."
"Thank you." Shawn hung up and checked his email. The sign on the side of the van was for Montgolfier Bros. Landscaping, but when he ran the plates, they came up as a vehicle owned by the Erie International Airport.
Shawn hung up and rushed to the printer to get the pic of the van and the plates, which were almost certainly swapped out again. He stopped by Dahl's office, talked to him for a few minutes, then jogged back to his desk and emailed Dahl the photos and info. While the traffic engineer was checking city cameras, Dahl could release the new information and if they were lucky, someone would recognize the van and call in -- maybe the person who owned the garage Brower was renting. He'd love to find the garage, but he really wanted that van.
Shawn swallowed an Advil with a half a cup of cold coffee, grabbed his stuff, then left in a rush to get to Jasper's service.
Chapter 19
Shawn's heart ached as he watched three men set up and adjust the pulley system that would lower Jasper into the ground.
Sarah discreetly set up her tripod next to a tree some distance from the burial site. He thought of the gifts he had for her, and hoped she would like them. He could make her dinner Saturday, maybe stuffed chicken breasts with goat cheese, a spring salad, asparagus risotto, another attempt at vanilla bean panna cotta for d
essert…
Then he felt horribly guilty for trying to divert his thoughts to something else.
"Thank you for coming," Shawn heard to his right. Jasper's friend Natasha made an effort to smile, though it was more of a twitch, and pushed her large black sunglasses to the top of her head. "Thank you for coming," he said. There were only a few people there. Jasper had no family left, so there was only him, Sarah, Natasha, the neighbor Andy Tunks, Annabelle and Peggy from the Battles Museums of Rural Life, and a couple of other people Shawn didn't recognize. He had already talked to everyone he did.
Natasha took hold of her purse strap. "I, um, brought some photos. Jasper gave me a whole box of stuff in January -- photos, old toys. In fact, he made me sole beneficiary of his estate." She gave him a sad, lopsided smile like this embarrassed her. "Honestly, I didn't think we were that close. We were friends, yeah, but…" She trailed off and pain crossed her face for just a second. "I still have to go through his house. His things."
"I found his marble collection," Shawn said. "I admit I kept one, as a…as something to remember him."
"Good," she said.
"It could be worth something," he added. "The collection. He was a talented mibster, won a good number of marbles when he used to play."
"Say it is worth something, and I do feel it," she said. "What do you think Jasper would want me to do with the money? His collection obviously meant something to him; he still had it."
Shawn shook his head, not sure if she meant the undoubtedly large amount of money Jasper must have left her, or the relatively small and hypothetical amount of money she could get for a marble collection. He thought she must be nervous about being his sole benefactor, and worried about doing the right thing by Jasper. It would be nice to have a friend like that. "I think you would know better than I would," he said. "He named you his benefactor for a reason. I know he drove an electric car, had a pug named Charlie, and donated to the Battles Museums."
She dug inside her purse and took out a white envelope, the side of it folded in a quarter of the length. "I brought these. If you want me to ship you the rest of it, I'd be happy to." Inside the envelope were a half-dozen Kodak film photos. In the top one, Jasper, Paul, Darcy, John, and Shawn were holding up their new Zippo lighters, a corner of the Bradford factory visible in the background. One of them, probably Darcy, had asked the employee to take it. Shawn lingered over this one, looking at their clothes, their faces. He remembered that day so clearly.
In the second photo, he and Jasper were hunched over a game of Battleship. His father was in the background, looking almost relaxed, almost…content. It might as well have been a photo from another bubble universe. Shawn went abruptly from a vivid memory to a total blank. He had no memory of his father being like that, and it was astounding that Jasper was at his house. They just didn't do that.
"What is it?" Natasha asked.
"Nothing. Just, I can't believe he was in my house. I don't -- " But then he did remember. He remembered Jasper, and Darcy, and even John Brower, coming over.
"Seriously, Detective, you look like you're about to puke or pass out. Are you okay?"
His friends had come to his house. They saw his house as a refuge, or they never would have stepped a foot inside. And this photo was proof that his father had been there at least once, that it wasn't a hard-and-fast rule that his father wasn't there when anyone came over. They wouldn't have risked that, anyway. Shawn never would have gone inside any one of their houses if there were even a remote risk anyone's dad would come home.
The third photo was of Darcy and Paul in the den at his house. The sun was shining through the orange glass window. They were ten, maybe eleven years old, in their pajamas, watching TV, probably Saturday morning cartoons. "Holy shit," he muttered. "They stayed over?"
Natasha plucked the photo from him, glanced at it, then handed it back, amused. "It's a common American cultural habit, wherein multiple children sleep overnight at a friend's house, eat too much junk food, and laugh their butts off. Cf., slumber party."
"I'm familiar with the concept," Shawn said, marveling. "I just…wow, I didn't remember this at all." Darcy and Paul felt safe enough at his house to stay there overnight. A revelation.
He had a distant shred of memory of Paul telling him at school that things were really bad with his parents, but didn't remember how Darcy came to stay. He wished he could talk to one of them, ask them about it. But two were dead, one was missing, and one was a serial killer he couldn't find, so he just needed to let that desire go and accept that he'd never find out more. He supposed he could ask his mother, but she wouldn't understand why he was even bringing it up or why it was a big deal, then invariably insist she had no recollection of the events, and then end up annoyed.
He wanted to give the photos back to Natasha. He wanted to rip them up, let the wind have them, or toss them into Jasper's grave. This investigation was soaking him in things he thought he had left behind. It was beckoning monsters from the fog.
Shawn thought of Jasper's papier-mâché monsters. He always was the only one willing to live with them. He used them to make art. Paul let them keep dragging him down. Brower killed. He worked. And Darcy? She seemed like the only one who was unaffected.
He used his phone to take a picture of two of the photos that included Brower, the ones with the sharpest images, then emailed them to the forensic artist. That would be enough to do age progression.
"Thanks for bringing these, Natasha."
"Sure. No problem."
His phone buzzed and he took it out. "Excuse me." Someone had called the tip line about the van. He called the office and talked to one of the other detectives who had taken the call.
"Ah, this is your case, Danger? You're the cat guy, right?"
"I have a cat."
"Weren't you the one who solved the Sylvain case?"
"Yes, but I don't have a traveling cat show, nor do I attend cat shows or have many cats. Anymore. Now would you mind telling me exactly what the tip line caller said."
The detective cleared his throat. "Yeah, no problem. It was a woman who called, said she's been renting her garage for the last few years to someone who has a white van like they described on the news."
Brower would figure it out soon enough -- if he hadn't heard the news already -- and he would get that van and any other evidence out of there as quickly as possible. "Give me her address," Shawn said, and grabbed a pen and small notepad from his interior suit jacket pocket. "Did she tell you anything else?"
"No, nothing else."
Shawn called Ashburn to give him an update, then he pocketed the phone and walked over to Sarah. He didn't say anything because he knew she was recording audio. She gave him a muted smile and he slid his hand up the nape of her neck, her hair cool between his fingers, and leaned down to kiss her. He parted from her, reluctantly, mouthing 'gotta go,' then turned and broke into a jog before he reached his car. He felt like a heel for leaving Jasper's burial service early, but there was no helping that, and he thought Jasper would prefer he find the person who did this rather than stay for the whole thing.
He programmed the address into his GPS and drove as fast as he could without turning the streets of Erie into a scene out of a summer blockbuster movie.
***
The tip line caller lived in a tiny but well-kept bungalow on the perimeter of downtown, surrounded by warehouse space that housed picture framers, auto body shops, and struggling non-profits. One narrow driveway on the right led to a single-vehicle garage with two barn-style doors that padlocked in the middle. The house was on the left, and Shawn thought that most people would miss it completely.
Shawn called Ashburn again. "I'm here."
"You see anything?"
"No, but I'd have to get the garage doors open with a bolt cutter. A warrant would help. And I need techs here to process the van."
"You'll just have to charm those doors open, Detective."
Shawn took his keys and got out of th
e car. The owner of the house and garage had called the damn tip line, hadn't she? Maybe he would be well-served to be more like Gene Hackman in The French Connection. He rang the doorbell. The woman who opened it was in her early fifties or late forties and was wearing rolled-up jeans, bright blue sandals, and a 1995 Erie Bicentennial Parade of the Century t-shirt. She narrowed green eyes behind tortoiseshell glasses that indicated she was farsighted.
"My name is Shawn Danger and I'm a detective with the Erie police department. You called our tip line about the garage you're renting."
"May I see your badge?"
He showed her. "Do you mind if I have a look inside?"
She folded her arms and considered him. He heard a meow. A pudgy, marmalade-colored cat threaded around her ankles. She nudged the cat away and closed the door an inch. "He always pays on time. He's perfectly nice."
"Who?"
"The man who rents my garage."
"But you heard we were looking for the van."
"That's right. I thought I had a civic duty to call." She raised her chin. "But I'm not comfortable with invading the privacy of my renter."
She couldn't have it both ways. "Your renter might have killed at least five people that we know about."
"Yeah, well, he's always been nice to me."
If you're nice, you can't be a killer, and if you're a killer, you can't be nice. Right. But then, people weren't often that nice, and if someone showed kindness, you'd be more willing to overlook other things. Like multiple murders. "Has he been in contact lately, your renter?"
She shrugged. "Not for at least a month."
"How often does he use the vehicle he keeps in your garage?"
"I'm here today, but I'm not always here."
"Take a guess."
"It's sporadic, but seems to be at least once a week."
"Do you know how long he's gone each time?" His impatience was an uncomfortable buzzing through his whole body.
"For hours, usually in the early morning. But I don't check the garage."
"So he might be taking it out at night, too."
"It's possible. I'm a heavy sleeper."
"Do you talk to him on a regular basis?" he asked.