Arriving, they were immediately struck by what they saw. The home was a sprawling brick rancher situated on heavily treed property. The driveway wound through the property and up to a free standing garage. The acreage was surrounded by a 12 foot tall chain link fence along which ‘Beware of Dogs’ signs hung at regular intervals. Across the driveway stood a tall reinforced gate that needed to be manually unlocked before entry. In the living room they were greeted by a gigantic Great Pyrenees and two black Doberman Pinchers. The three eyed the team fixedly, alert to their every move. These were trained working dogs and at the moment, they were working! This house was under their protection! They were greeted by Mr. and Mrs. Swenson, a tall greying man and a petite woman whose straight blonde hair was streaked with grey. As they settled down in the living room their two beautiful athletic-looking daughters, long blonde hair cascading across their shoulders entered the room.
The team nearly shouted “Bingo!!” The killers had not been looking for a car to steal they had been stalking these girls! That explained why they had driven into a remote residential area and stolen this old car. The Plymouth belonged to the daughters who drove it home from University of Charleston most weekends. The killers had followed them back here, saw those dogs patrolling the yard and gave up on their kidnapping plans. If the dogs slept inside at night the killers might have felt relatively free to steal the car, perhaps out of spite. But how did they get into the yard and get the car out through the locked gate especially without alerting the dogs? As it turned out there had been a thunderstorm the night the car was stolen, the dogs slept inside and the storm covered the car theft noises.
The team spent three hours with the Swenson family, tracking every minute of their lives for the week before the car was stolen. Neither of the girls remembered any frightening encounters nor had they been approached by anyone, however one of the girls recalled a tall, skinny guy in hunting clothes hanging around outside her dorm. She remembered him because he had the tattoo of a snake winding around his neck. She had seen him talking to another guy heavy set, also wearing hunting clothes near the Arts and Sciences Building. She thought it was weird to see guys in hunting clothes on a campus and wondered what they were doing there. Several of her friends commented on them and said they were going to call campus security. She said she never saw them again and had forgotten about them. She didn’t think she could help with a sketch because she didn’t really see their faces, but was willing to try. The other girl hadn’t seen anyone at all, but said she had heard noises outside her dorm room window, which was on the first floor. Her roommate had drawn the curtain but all she saw were branches moving; she concluded it had been a squirrel.
The team immediately notified the headquarters about the college connection and 2 officers were dispatched to Charleston. It was theorized that some of the car thefts ascribed to the gang may actually have been failed kidnapping attempts. “Follow up on all car theft reports and see if we have any connections to women fitting our profile or reports of peeping toms, stalking or other suspicious activity,” Lou said.
Before leaving the Swenson’s neighborhood, Team 1 canvassed the area. The stolen license plate that was found on the Plymouth belonged to a neighbor 2 blocks down. The young man who answered the door had nothing more to contribute to the case and just wanted to know when he could get his license plate returned. On the way back Team 1 considered the bigger issue of how the car thefts unfolded. Regardless of the vehicle selection process, the killers would have to get rid of the vehicle they were driving and dispose of it. They wouldn’t just leave it abandoned somewhere unless it was an emergency. Even if they only had it for a few hours it would have contained evidence that could be used against them so each abandoned vehicle would have to be disposed of. The Team decided these stolen vehicles would have been destroyed, maybe pushed over the edge of a cliff or set on fire. They returned to the office and started combing through reports of abandoned vehicles. They also considered that the gang would need someplace safe where they could transfer all of their belongings from one vehicle to another. Given what was found in the Plymouth it was clear that the killers had accumulated a lot of possessions they hauled around with them. The team started looking for the gang’s previous vehicle. They searched out of the way fields and parking areas where they could safely transfer their belongings and for places where they could destroy or dispose of their vehicles without being discovered. That led them to creek beds or mountains with steep cliffs. Six hours later Team 1 stood on a mountainous lookout spot staring down at the charred remains of an old red Mercedes truck. It was dusk before hovering helicopters lowered the crime scene investigators down to the wreckage. By the following afternoon the old Mercedes tied to a flatbed truck was on its way to the FBI lab at Quantico.
That truck had been stolen ten days ago from a rundown tavern near the Gallitzin State Forest in Pennsylvania. Another piece of the map had fallen into place. This one really interested the Task Force. There had been no incidences of the gang being in that general area since Gabriella (nicknamed Reilla) Cagnolotti had been kidnapped and raped near Boswell, PA in 2004. Now what were those killers doing up in that area stealing an old Mercedes truck? There must be some reason that they had returned to that particular area. The Team pulled up crime reports from Western Pennsylvania, looking for leads. Finding nothing of interest in the police reports they began to consider what other connections the killers might have with Western Pennsylvania. What, they asked themselves, were these guys doing up there? They sure as hell weren’t sightseeing!
CHAPTER 23
THE PARKLAND KILLERS
“Where the hell is it?” he bellowed.
“I’m looking, Jake, just give me a minute,” Custer pleaded glancing between the folded map and the road signs along the highway. “The road’s under construction, so it’s different than on the map.”
“It’s a fuckin’ huge mountain, where the hell can it be? How come you can’t find it? You idiot!” Jake screamed. “They didn’t just plow down the freaking mountain did they?”
“Okay, okay calm down, I think I got it, turn left up there next to that Wendy’s,” Custer said. They were on Rte.75 north headed toward Daniel Boone National Forest in their most recently stolen 2005 Dodge 4-Door Pickup. They’d picked up this truck before they got to the North Carolina border. Jake felt that the fleet car they’d boosted in Asheville was too hot so he stole this pickup and they ditched the fleet car behind a construction site. They shoveled dirt on top of it, took off its tires, stole a license plate from another car and left. Custer had patched Slim up as best he could and got him settled while Jake threw shovels full of dirt inside the fleet car, thinking it would disguise the blood evidence and fingerprints.
Jake then stuck up an Asian grocery in a poor section of Chattanooga and made off with $625; then they stuck up a liquor store outside of Clearwater upping their bankroll to $1500. “That’s enough,” Jake decided. Then Custer went shopping. Two hours later the flat back, covered with a canvas tarp, was stuffed with clothes and camping gear newly purchased at Wal-Mart along with several big coolers filled with enough food and ice to last several weeks. Jake waited impatiently in the truck, chain smoking and swearing at Slim who moaned in the back of the truck. They’d taken the pillows and blankets from the hotel and made him a bed on the seat, but then thought he might be seen by passing trucks so they put him on the floor and covered him completely with blankets. Their first stop had been to get first aid supplies for Slim. They thought he would live but he was really in bad shape. They debated whether or not to take him to the hospital, maybe leave him in an E.R. parking lot or something, but that seemed altogether too risky. They’ll ID him and arrest him. Or worse, he’d just start talking and blab to the cops. No Jake decided, he’d just have to do without a hospital. They knew a BOLO had been issued for them, they knew that the cops now had a mass of evidence against them as a result of the Plymouth seizure and the fight in the motel room. They didn’t know
how much time they had before the cops caught up with them.
Slim moaned. He was delirious, feverish. He kept muttering things that Jake couldn’t understand, it sounded to him like gibberish, something about mouse traps or purses. He couldn’t tell, between the delirium and Slim’s swollen face the words coming out just didn’t make sense. “Shut the Fuck up!” Jake screeched, his lips taunt and his jaws clenched. Slim shut up. Delirious though he was, he got the message. He began to weep into the pillow. He’d wet himself and bled all over the back of the truck, he was nauseous, dehydrated and miserable. He was convinced he was dying. In fact, he wished he could die. Everything in his body hurt, his head, his face, his ribs, everything. Slim wanted to die. ‘Even if I live,’ he thought, ‘Jake is going to kill me, so I’m dead either way.’ Custer was his only chance. Custer was nice to him. Custer would give him water and maybe some medicine.
“D’ya get it?” Jake demanded as Custer climbed into the truck? There had been just one more stop to make before they could head up into the mountains.
“Yea,” Custer replied as he slipped a long, square package under his seat. Jake glanced sidewise and they exchanged a knowing look. They were silent as they drove toward the mountain range and one of their old camp sites.
“Sure you got everything we’re gonna need?” Jake asked as they passed another small town along the highway.
“I think so,” Custer said as Jake recited randomly from their shopping list: “matches, soap, jockey shorts, beer, beef jerky, insect spray, bullets, hot dogs, sleeping bags, toilet paper, hunting knives, tent, toothpaste, betadine, mustard.…” on and on he went.
After every item, Custer said, “Yep” or “Got it” and Jake would call out the next item that popped into his mind. They fell silent.
After about an hour of driving, Jake asked, “What are we going to do about him?” jerking his head toward the back seat.
“He’ll get better, Jake, don’t you worry about that,” Custer assured him, “Slim’s tough. He just needs time.” There was another long silence.
Then Jake asked, “What if he doesn’t, we can’t manage with a cripple, you know.”
“He ain’t a cripple, Jake, he’s just sick is all,” Custer told him. “Give him some time, Jake, this just happened, you know.”
“I KNOW!” Jake screamed, “I know it just happened, what do you think, I’m an idiot? I know, I know. I’m the one who beat him remember? My damn hands still hurt like a son of a bitch. I know it just happened. I know he’s sick. I know we’re in trouble. I KNOW G-d Damn it! You don’t have to remind me!”
“Ok, Jake, calm down,” said Custer softly sliding closer toward his door. Jake glanced sidewise.
“Okay Cus okay, you done good Buddy, you done real good. You got what we need and we’ll just go hide out for a while and see how things go, Okay?”
Jake softened. “We’ll be Okay, right Cus?”
“Yea, Jake, sure, we’ll be Okay,” Custer assured him.
Darkness descended as they drove higher up the mountain and deeper into the forest, jarring headlights ricocheting off trees as they ascended.
CHAPTER 24
THE GRAPEVINE
The room smelled of books and silence, a deep dense silence that penetrated the space. People quietly searched the crowded shelves, sat reading at long tables or typing on their laptops. Carts piled high with books were rolled between the stacked rows. Fading sunlight flitted through the small high windows of the Hurricane Public Library. Faint whispers could be heard as librarians checked out stacks of books. It was nearly dinner time and people hurried to get home before dark. All three public computers sitting next to each other on a Formica table were in use. Edna Goodwin sat nearby staring at a book she wasn’t reading and waiting for someone to leave. She was nervous that she would not get time to send her message. It was urgent that she get on a computer.
First thing that very morning, her friend, Fran, who was a secretary at the Putnam County Police Department, had called her at school “We have to talk,” she had said, “it’s real important. It’s about the ‘you know who’s,’ and all that news stuff.” They met at Dip and Dunk Donut Shop after school and Fran reported what she had heard. “I hear that the police think whoever hurt those girls might be from around here. They think they did that stuff down in Asheville, you know with the mayors’ daughter’s wedding and all? Asheville police came up here all excited. And someone found out there was a near miss of another kidnapping and murder of a couple of girls somewhere close by. But they didn’t get them ‘cause of the family had big dogs. The FBI is taking over. Cops from neighbor states are here, maybe from the whole U.S. of A. Chester and the boys are busy as all get out. They’re checking schools too, school records and such. So I thought I better let you know about that, you working at a school and all.” Fran stopped for a breath.
“School records?” Edna asked with a frown. “For what?”
“I don’t rightly know, Fran said, “something about pictures or reports of bad kids or missing girls.” Fran went on, “It’s like a zoo over there. People are everywhere! They have lots of evidence and they took it to a lab somewhere up north near DC. They don’t know who these guys are but they think they’re from around these parts. And I wondered if it’s like that stuff you do sometimes, you know what I mean?” Fran knotted her eyebrows meaningfully and whispered, “Like that little girl from years back? You know what I mean, right?”
Edna nodded. “Well it’s just like that. Chester told his wife she needed to take their girls and go stay with her parents over at Charlestown because the killers might come back. Things are going to hell in a hand basket over at the police station. Ain’t nobody doing nothing else! I ain’t seen nothing like it in all my days. And my sister, Sara Jane, you know she works to the courthouse; she said some cops were checking out old court records looking for I don’t know what all. So I thought I better warn you, you being involved in stuff like this sometimes,” Fran whispered looking from side to side making sure they weren’t being overheard.
“Oh and one more thing,” Fran murmured, “One of the FBI folks said that he thought the killers were heading north. I don’t know where though. Rumor has it that this whole thing is about one girl in particular but they don’t know who. They are keeping everything really hush-hush, you know, not telling anyone anything. I’m just real worried, is all. I’d like to take a few days off work and stay home cause its sort of scary like but they’re so busy over there I don’t feel right about doing that. Oh and one more thing. I went into that big police meeting room to give some stuff to Chester and they have a big wall with all those girls pictures, you know what I mean,” again she did the eye thing, “and sure enough those girls look an awful lot like that little girl, you know who I mean, from years ago,” she nodded a knowing expression on her face. “Could be her twins, they could,” she added looking at Edna’s frozen face.
Edna Goodwin grew increasingly terrified as she listened to her friend’s tale, especially the part about the dead girls looking like Reggie Lee and about The Parkland Killers going north. She hoped they weren’t going north because of Reggie and couldn’t imagine how they would have located her, but strange things were happening and she had to send out a warning. Her gut said this mess connected to Reggie somehow. Thanking Fran for letting her know all of this, she hurriedly left the Donut Shop, cell phone plastered to her ear listening to unanswered rings. “Come on, pick up,” she muttered to herself. “For G-d’s sake Rhoda, pick up!” she prayed.
In her 60’s, Rhoda Eades had been fighting domestic violence her whole adult life. A child of violence, she devoted her life to helping others. She had founded the local underground network modeling it after the ‘underground railway’ that had saved so many slaves after the Civil War. Wise and black, she had a unique brand of healing messages. She was an inspiration to all who knew her. Endless energy, kind and compassionate, she drew people to her. She had a face and voice that made people settle d
own and listen to her. Rhoda and Edna had been friends all of their lives. Their families’ farms were just a few fields away from each other. Once the little girls found each other, they formed a strong friendship. They met every afternoon to play or talk. No one knew about their friendship because back in those days, friendships didn’t cross racial lines. The girls, in their innocence, ignored those messages and formed a lasting friendship that grew more open as political changes occurred. Trust and affection grew as their mutual interests dovetailed.
By the time the phone went to voice mail, Edna had reached her car, deciding not to re-dial she drove across town to the Woman’s Shelter. Rhoda, the head of the Domestic Violence Underground Network was also the Director of the Women’s Shelter. Cold wind blew in with her as Edna opened the door and nodded urgently to her friend. Soon they were tucked away in a small office crammed with filing cabinets and office equipment. Once seated with the door closed, Edna began to retell what she’d learned. “It’s never over til it’s over,” her friend replied mysteriously as she listened to the story, nodding. Then she responded with a report of her own. “Well, I’ve got something to report too. One of our girls here is friends with that girl who was nearly kidnapped a while back, remember, in that shopping center parking lot? Some guys managed to wrestle her away from the kidnapper, right? Well that girl remembers those men and from what she says it sounds like the same fellows whose pictures were on TV. I told her to go to the police, but she’s too afraid. She thinks the killers will find out she told the cops and come after her. From what she says though, I think it’s them.”
Relentless (Elisabeth Reinhardt Book 1) Page 13