Vengeance Road

by Rick Mofina

  “Dobson and Wurlitz, that’s you with the FBI,” the lieutenant said. “Candy, let’s get to the key fact and hold back. I want to remind everyone that nothing, absolutely nothing, leaves this room.”

  Large, sharp photos of the locket filled the screen.

  “She was clutching this in her left hand,” Rose said.

  The inscription Love Mom was clear, as was the photo of a toddler.

  “Candace, that could be your key to identification,” one detective said. “Maybe you should run this through the FBI’s Jewelry and Gem database, see if it’s been reported stolen.”

  “The FBI no longer maintains it,” FBI special agent Nick Vester said. “It’s now run by the industry. But looking at the locket, it would appear to have low dollar value and might not be included. However, we know the operators of the database make case-by-case decisions depending on the circumstances. We’ll check for you.”

  “Thanks,” Rose said then clicked to a gruesome image—the word carved into the victim’s forehead.

  “Gee Zuss,” someone said.

  “This is also holdback,” Rose said.

  “What’s that all about?” one detective asked.

  “I think we should go back to Agent Vester to give us his thoughts.” The captain nodded at Vester, who’d spent last summer at the FBI’s academy at Quantico studying psychological profiling of ritualistic violent crimes.

  “Off the top, just based on what we know here, it’s clearly ritualistic. It exhibits his control. It’s organized, almost ceremonial, as if he was adhering to a procedure. The gross mutilation, the overkill, and the obvious message let people know he’s justified in his crusade. Something is raging internally.”

  “The coroner suggested something along those lines,” Rose said.

  “I’d suggest you submit your case, key fact evidence and all, to ViCAP. If you fill out the form I’ll submit it at the field office as soon as I can.”

  “Do that, Candace,” the Captain said. “Okay, people, you’ve got your assignments. Next meeting in twenty-four hours.”

  It was early evening by the time Rose got to the ViCAP form. She was a true believer in the system, having learned more of its history when she had studied for the homicide detectives’ exam.

  The idea for the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program emerged over fifty years ago with an LAPD detective who was pursuing a killer who lured women to their deaths by placing ads for models in newspapers. After taking their photographs, he would rape, then hang them.

  The investigator was convinced that the murders in Los Angeles were linked to those in other area cities and searched for patterns by studying similar murders reported in out-of-town newspapers at the public library. The detective discovered enough links to track down his suspect.

  The killer was convicted and executed.

  Years later, the FBI helped develop the concept into a computerized data system for police to quickly share information on mobile suspects.

  Now, as Rose completed the form, she hoped ViCAP would help her with her first homicide. She answered some one hundred detailed questions on every known aspect of the crime scene and the victim, including key fact, or holdback evidence, which most cops rarely shared.

  After Rose’s case was submitted to the database, FBI analysts would compare it to all other submitted files. Like the LAPD detective half a century earlier, they would look for patterns, matches or signatures linked to other crimes in other jurisdictions. The ViCAP analysts never revealed holdback, but when they got a hit, they alerted the case detectives and advised them to talk to each other.

  It was late when Rose finished and hand delivered the form to Vester at the FBI’s field office, which was on her way home.

  Vester, working late himself, assured Rose her case was a priority and that within twenty-four hours it would be submitted “and in the mix” at the FBI’s ViCAP database in Quantico, Virginia.

  When Rose arrived home, she found her husband asleep on the couch in front of the TV while John Wayne looked for his abducted niece in The Searchers.

  Rose walked softly to her son’s bedroom. Jesse was asleep. She watched him breathing for several moments before bending down and tenderly touching his head. He smelled of shampoo, assuring her that her husband had gotten their youngest in the shower.

  Then she went to her daughter’s bedroom. Emily’s place was a mess, typical of a girl on the cusp of her teens. Rose abandoned the thought of tidying and kissed Em’s cheek.

  She then went downstairs, kissed her husband, who woke up and dragged himself to bed. Then she took a hot shower, washing away the autopsy, the day. Her husband was snoring when she slid into bed next to him. Rose couldn’t sleep. She was determined not to drop the ball on her first case. She switched on her reading light to look at the enlarged photo of the locket.

  The bright-eyed boy stared back at her.

  Who do you belong to, sweetheart?

  Someone was holding you so tight, so tight they’d never let go. They must have loved you so much.

  So much.

  47

  Valerie Olson cupped her hands around her mug then left the office kitchen for her desk at the FBI academy in Quantico.

  Olson took in the view of the Virginia woods surrounding the secure facility. She was an early riser who loved her job and always started long before her shift began. Today, a note from her supervisor greeted her from her keyboard.

  Val, got a new one last night from Wichita. John

  “All right,” Olson said to herself as she logged on to her terminal. She was a case analyst with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. ViCAP was headquartered within the Critical Incident Response Group in what was known as the CIRG building.

  Olson had always thought the program could have passed for the claims department of a large insurance company, or a major call center. For nothing betrayed the enormity of the work beneath the clicking keyboards and quiet telephone conversations of the three dozen crime analysts. It was here that they searched ViCAP’s ever-growing database for serial patterns among violent crimes across the country.

  The program divided the U.S. into six regions and each region had analysts and supervisory agents assigned to them: W-1, W-2, W-3 for the western half, E-1, E-2, E-3 for the eastern.

  Olson, a seasoned Minneapolis homicide detective, took the job just over a year ago, not long after she’d retired.

  “The program’s always looking for someone with your expertise, Val,” the FBI recruiter, an old college friend, had told her.

  Olson’s husband, a retired airline pilot, encouraged her to go for it.

  “Milder winters and closer to Florida,” he said. “Besides, I don’t think you’re done pursuing justice.”

  Her husband was right.

  Olson embraced the work, loved helping put the pieces together, loved using her years as an investigator to assure passionate detectives that their cases were safe in her hands.

  “I’ve been in your shoes,” Olson would tell them. “My job is to help you find the links that will lead you to your killer. We’re in this together.”

  Olson sipped her tea as she began studying the new case. She was attached to the eastern region, which encompassed much of the Northeast, the Great Lake states and the Rust Belt.

  All of ViCAP’s regions would be analyzing the new submission from Wichita, comparing it with others from their areas of responsibility. Like most cases the program received, this one was gruesome.

  Olson read over all the known details. Horrible, just horrible, she thought as she moved on to focus on the key fact evidence.

  She concentrated on the word GUILTY crudely carved into the victim’s forehead then queried the system. While awaiting the results, she checked the submission’s source. Detective Candace Rose, Wichita PD, Homicide.

  Olson reached for her tea but stopped.

  She’d gotten a hit.

  “All right. Let’s see.”

  Olson ent
ered her security codes to gain access to the other file.

  The hit linked the Wichita case to one submitted recently by Michael Brent, an Investigator with the New York State Police. In the New York case, the victim was also a female. Also slain in a ritualistic manner. Body was found by walkers in a wooded area near Buffalo.

  Olson’s pulse kicked up as she went to Brent’s evidentiary key fact mode. Her keyboard clicked and she almost smiled at what she read.

  “Bingo.”

  In the New York case, the word GUILTY had also been cut into the victim’s head just under the hairline.

  The victim was identified as Bernice Tina Hogan, a twenty-three-year-old nursing student from Buffalo, New York.

  In the Wichita case, the coroner estimated the victim’s age at being twenty to thirty. Identification had not yet been confirmed. Other key fact evidence in Wichita included a locket bearing the inscription Love Mom, which contained the photograph of a small boy.

  Olson was typing and reading as fast as she could now.

  The New York case had supplemental information of a potential link to the homicide: the missing person case of Jolene Peller of Buffalo, New York. Peller was described as a white female, aged twenty-six. One key descriptive in the file—

  Olson gasped, covered her mouth with her hand and continued reading.

  The key descriptive: a locket bearing the inscription Love Mom, containing the photograph of a small boy, Peller’s three-year-old son, Cody.

  Olson reached for her phone.

  48

  The rising sun broke the horizon at Ellicott Creek.

  Bernice Hogan had been murdered less than fifty yards from the bench where Michael Brent sat alone reviewing the case. As he gazed at the sky’s reflection on the serene water, he grilled himself again.

  What was he missing?

  The Hogan homicide was all he could think about. He couldn’t sleep. But when he did, he woke up exhausted. He’d lost his appetite, lost weight. And after his shot at Karl Styebeck a few days back, Brent suffered a burning sensation in his stomach.

  His ulcers had returned.

  This morning before leaving his empty house, he’d drunk a quart of milk.

  He didn’t give a damn about his physical discomfort.

  Comes with the job.

  It was his sworn duty to see justice done. He needed to clear this homicide before he hung up his badge. He already faced the rest of his life without his wife. How could he bear the torment of letting a killer go free?

  He couldn’t and he wouldn’t

  He vowed to close this case.

  The pages of his notebook fluttered as he went through his notes again.

  Over the last few days he’d believed, truly believed, that he was close. But since he’d questioned Styebeck at the Barracks; since their futile search of Styebeck’s house, vehicles, records; since the breaks on Jolene Peller’s cell phone and the tire impression, they’d made little progress.

  Brent knew in his heart that Styebeck was lying. Knew in his gut that Styebeck was linked to Bernice Hogan’s murder and Jolene Peller’s disappearance.

  All he had to do was prove it.

  As Brent flipped pages he reminded himself to be flexible and not get so mired in his theories on Styebeck that he forgot the other aspects.

  The angle of the mystery truck.

  He reviewed everything related to it. The girls on Niagara had reported seeing “a creepy guy in a big truck.” Jolene Peller’s cell phone was found in the Chicago truck stop. Other calls to Styebeck’s home came from public phones. Maybe Brent should adjust his thinking.

  His cell phone shattered the morning calm, startling him. The number was blocked. He answered with one word.

  “Brent.”

  “Investigator Michael Brent with the New York State Police?”

  “Yes, who’s calling?”

  “Valerie Olson with the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program in Quantico, Virginia.”

  “ViCAP?”

  “Yes, sir, and I think we have a very strong link to the case you recently submitted concerning the homicide of Bernice Tina Hogan.”

  “That so? And where would that be?”

  “Kansas.”

  “Can you tell me what the strong link is, exactly?”

  “I can’t, as you know we respect everyone’s key fact evidence. But when you’re ready to copy, I’ll give you the contact information for the detective on the Kansas case. They’ve got a very recent homicide and you should talk.”

  Brent flipped to a clear page, clicked his pen, noted the date and time.

  “Go ahead.”

  In Witchita, Candace Rose was in the shower when she was interrupted by her husband’s loud knocking on the bathroom door.

  “Phone, Candy! New York State Police. Something about ViCAP.”

  It took Rose less than thirty seconds to towel off, throw on her bathrobe and grab the phone in her bedroom. Within minutes of Rose talking to Brent, the two detectives agreed their cases were linked.

  Forty minutes later, Rose was at her desk in the Homicide Section and back on the phone with Brent. Half a continent apart, the two investigators were simultaneously looking at the two homicides on their computer monitors. As they compared their cases, it was clear that Bernice Hogan and Jane Doe in Kansas were murdered by the same person.

  Both victims were females in their twenties. Both had shoulder-length dark hair. Both were discovered in outdoor crime scenes amid wooded sections of metropolitan areas. Both scenes, while hidden, were easily accessible by the public. Both involved ritualistic display.

  “It’s like he wants his work discovered,” Rose said.

  She shared photographs of the signature cut into the victim’s forehead under the hairline: GUILTY.

  Brent sent her the crime scene and autopsy photos of Bernice Hogan bearing the single word GUILTY, carved into her forehead under the hairline.

  “Now, this next item is the one you said may help us ID our victim here,” Rose said as they came to enlarged photographs of the locket.

  “Yeah. We think that locket belongs to a woman who was Bernice Hogan’s friend. We have witnesses who saw her with Bernice the night before Bernice’s body was discovered.”

  “And that would be Jolene Peller, according to the missing person’s file you sent me, Mike.”

  “Her mother reported her missing a few days after the Hogan murder. Peller was headed to Florida to start a new job, but she never arrived.”

  “And she’s a single mom with a three-year-old boy, Cody. The little boy I’m looking at right now.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The locket from our case is identical to the one described in Jolene Peller’s missing-person’s report. Our Jane Doe’s age, height and weight are consistent with Peller. We’re still working on obtaining a dental chart.”

  “We have a dental chart and fingerprints for Peller. I’ll send them to you this afternoon for comparison as soon as I do the paperwork.”

  “We’ll be standing by.”

  But that afternoon, shortly after Wichita’s Homicide Section received Jolene Peller’s fingerprints and dental chart, tragedy struck on an interstate just outside the city.

  A van carrying twelve high-school cheerleaders to a competition in Wichita blew a front tire and swerved into the path of an oncoming dump truck. The van ignited, killing six people trapped inside.

  Two others were ejected.

  The shock of the accident reverberated across the entire state. Confirming the identities of the dead superseded all other cases for the coroner’s office.

  Identifying the female homicide victim was delayed, Rose told Brent in Buffalo.

  After five minutes of consideration, Brent made a phone call. Then he collected his files and summoned his partner, Roxanne Esko.

  “I don’t know, Mike,” Esko said as they drove to Mary Peller’s apartment in Schiller Park. “Is this a good idea? Shouldn’t we wait?”

/>   “We can’t risk this leaking out before she’s been told.”

  After arriving and parking, they went to Mary Peller’s door.

  Among Brent’s files were enlarged photographs from the Wichita Homicide Section of the locket the victim in the Kansas case had been holding.

  Brent was going to show them to Mary Peller.

  Then he would gently destroy her world by telling her to brace for the worst. The search for her daughter had likely ended in a wooded area of Wichita, Kansas.

  49

  Jack Gannon returned from Alberta with more than his luggage.

  He’d unearthed disturbing facets of Karl Styebeck’s life.

  That Styebeck came from an incestuous bloodline, and that his father may have murdered his family, was chilling.

  Little by little something was taking shape. Should he confront Styebeck now, or keep digging?

  Gannon thought it over while driving home from the airport.

  It was early evening, traffic was light. He’d eaten and slept on the flight and arrived at his apartment energized. He checked for messages, e-mails and for any developments from the News or Sentinel. There was nothing. Adell Clark was still out of town on one of her own cases.

  Okay, so his trip to Canada had paid off.

  He had something but was unsure what his next move should be.

  He was frustrated.

  While he’d uncovered a terrifying chapter on Karl Styebeck’s father, Deke, he still hadn’t found much more on Karl, other than the fact that he was married to Alice, a bank teller, and they had a son, Taylor. Styebeck coached ball teams, worked for charities, went to church. He was a small-town hero who’d grown up in Texas, the son of a prison guard. And he’d joined the Ascension Park Police Department some twelve years ago.

  Gannon knew nothing more of Styebeck’s earlier life.

  His search of records had yielded nothing so far.

  It was like Styebeck’s past was a secret.

  Gannon’s phone rang with a blocked number.