Relentless (Elisabeth Reinhardt Book 1)

by Nancy Alexander

  They’d been sitting there for hours. Star, afraid to approach them again, leaned against the counter talking to Gus. “Just leave them be,” he said to her, “Give it another half hour and then go give them some free slices of pie, hell they’re working their asses off over this shit, damn nightmare is what it is.”

  “Yea, I know, horrible what happened to all those girls. And them being just kids…” Star agreed, turning with her wet towel to wipe off a counter.

  Chester opened the dialogue with, “Are we in agreement that impetus for the victim selection process comes from the leader? He’s the one with the fixation and the others just do his bidding?”

  Lou responded without looking up, “Yep, we have a serial rapist/killer with a fixed victim selection pattern. Plus, we have a criminal gang with a dominant leader and two submissive followers, acting out a long established pattern of intimidation and control. So we not only have to profile the leader and his issues, we also have to profile the gang, look at the power structure, the dynamics of the group, anything that might tell us how to turn The Parkland Killers against each other. Anything that threatens the integrity of the group will help catch them. This is a rather unusual combination.

  “Of course it’s happened before, like the Manson Gang, but these serial guys usually work alone and poorly structured gangs usually break up when the pressure mounts. This type of gang is different from a street gang where race, bloodlines and geography determine group membership. Those gangs exist for generations and involve whole families. Those highly structured gangs determine rank and file member’s beliefs, actions and identity.

  “Most organized gangs have a complex set of rules, traditions and practices, maybe illegal, but clear and consistent nonetheless. Street gangs, the Mafia, certain cults fall into that category. This gang has many of those characteristics. By now this gang is their life, their livelihood, their identity. But it’s still rather haphazard, random and chaotic. They don’t know what they are doing from one minute to the next. They are reacting to whim and circumstances.

  “What is consistent with this gang is that there is a boss and two followers. Somehow he maintains control, probably through fear and intimidation but also by providing for the followers and giving them a sense of belonging. Otherwise they would have found a way to break away before this. They aren’t prisoners after all. Some gangs like this do break up after a while. But these guys haven’t run away even though they could have. And the leader hasn’t gotten rid of them either, even though he could have. He wants to keep them with him. For his own protection or perhaps fear that they will lead the police to his doorstep. Or maybe because he’s as dependent on them as they are on him.

  “This is a fragile, psychologically complex situation. The leader is decompensating, his nearly killing one of the gang members tells us that, he’s losing control or the gang member who started the police chase would not have risked doing what he did. This is an unstable time and at this point anything can happen. If the leader feels he’s losing control he’ll be more erratic and take bigger risks. If they think they have nothing to lose they’ll want to go out in a blaze of glory, killer-style. We don’t know what internal forces are keeping them together. We don’t know if the followers stay because they want to, or because they are afraid not to.”

  The two men were thoughtful for a while, thinking about that. “I think they are afraid to go,” Chester said, “or they can’t figure out how to get away. By now at least one of them would want to get out, they’ve got the whole world looking for them. Christ, he nearly killed one of them and for all we know he’s dead already.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lou said picking up a report, “Their last robbery took down a bunch of cash and a few hours later, we got a guy who looks like one of our guys on camera at one of those Big Wal-Mart’s buying a ton of food and first aid supplies just hours after that robbery. We got the store to give us copies of their receipts. It was supplies for 3 people, like 3 toothbrushes, 3 pillows, 3 different sizes of underwear, stuff like that. No, I think they are all three out there somewhere. They know it’s only a matter of time. They’d go if they could. They’d want to get out and cut a deal with us. Loyalty is one thing, but survival is another.”

  “And another thing to consider is what happens in that gang when they have a victim with them. We don’t know why they kill some and not others. There has to be a reaction within the group about these women. Maybe the ‘submissives’ advocate saving some of the women, for some reason. Maybe the difference between the ‘live and die’ groups is not about the women themselves, but the result of a gang dynamic. You know some type of pay off or bargaining among gang members.”

  “I get it,” Chester responded, “something like, ‘I’ll let her live because you said or did something or now you owe me something because I did this for you?”

  “Right,” Lou responded, “on the surface the two victim groups are the same, attending school, young, blonde and athletic with the letter R in their first, middle or nicknames. They all meet the profile for kidnapping and rape. But some were tortured, killed and buried. Others were taken somewhere and released. All reports from the girls who were released are the same. The killers clearly wanted those they released to be found alive. None of the ‘released’ group saw their kidnappers’ faces because they had been blindfolded. We don’t know if the women they killed were blindfolded or not. It could be that the ‘killed group’ saw their attackers and that’s why they were killed, but I don’t think so.

  No, I think there’s something else we’re missing with this issue. Either there’s something different about the girls and their experiences or behavior or there’s something different in the group’s reaction to them. We’re looking further into their reports to see if we can see what the differences are. Something must happen once they are in captivity that determines the outcome. We’re re-interviewing the survivors to unearth more subtle differences in the scripting.”

  They were silent until Chester muttered, “I wonder if it’s something like their tone of voice? Or if they fight or cry?”

  “Probably the fight part, I’d guess,” Lou said, “There is some specific response that he’s looking for from his victims. If he gets it, there’s one outcome, if not there’s another.”

  Star walked over and put a tray of assorted pie slices on the table, “Gus wanted me to give these to you,” she said, filled their coffee cups again and walked quickly away without glancing down at the photos spread out across the tables.

  “Thanks, Star,” Chester said, but he barely looked up.

  “There’s something else we have to look at,” Lou said, “and that’s Arushi Kowndamani. She doesn’t fall within the parameters of the profile. She was 23, the oldest of the victims. A Pakastani woman who dressed in traditional clothing, her hair was black and worn in a braid down her back. She is the one woman who does not meet any of the profile criteria.”

  Chester nodded in silence. The two men stared at her photograph and reviewed her case file, which contained recent interviews from her friends and family members and a detailed account of her last several days alive. Rushi Kowndamani was leaving her job at the Super 8 Motel at 11:30PM. The parking lot was long and narrow, bound on both sides by uncultivated fields. Her car sat in darkness at the far end of the lot where three street lights had been broken. She had been carrying her laptop and some books in a large cloth bag when she was grabbed. The bag and its contents were found a few feet from her car and that’s the last anyone saw of her.

  The killers had not been registered guests at the motel and no one reported seeing anyone matching their descriptions anywhere around the motel. A review of nearby restaurants, stores, parking lots revealed nothing. There had been no nearby robberies. The same was true of the college where Rushi attended culinary school, there was no trace of the killers anywhere on or near the campus and there were no reported robberies or other crimes that could have involved the killers.

  The
y were just about to give up when Chester said, “Wait, here’s something. Rushi visited an elderly neighbor in an Elkins Nursing Home every Wednesday afternoon before heading to work. She was kidnapped on a Wednesday night. Maybe she ran into the killers there.”

  “At a nursing home?” Lou looked skeptical, “You think our killers met this victim at a nursing home?!”

  “I know it sounds strange but stranger things have happened. We don’t know who these guys may know or stay in contact with. Maybe they regularly visit their old granny, who knows, we should check it out,” Chester replied, feeling a little foolish.

  Lou picked up his cell phone and called his computer ‘wiz.’ “Hey, Will, see if you can track down a nursing home lead for us,” he said and gave him the details.

  Both men stared out the window at the falling snow. “Where in the hell can those bastards be?” Chester murmured, more to himself than to Lou.

  “Beats hell out of me,” Lou replied, “but they sure as hell aren’t out there running around in 5 feet of snow, you can bet on that. They’re holed up somewhere biding their time, healing their wounds, planning their next job. If we’re lucky they’ll kill each other off and we can find their bodies when the snow melts!”

  CHAPTER 33

  DOMINOES

  Elisabeth Reinhardt stood at her office window. Partly obscured by clustered palm fronds, she watched Gina’s back as she crossed toward Starbucks and headed to the subway station. Reflecting on her patient’s words, she had a growing sense of alarm. Toying with the antique gold chain barely visible beneath the folds of her silk collar, she turned and moved toward her desk, slowly extracting the necklace link by link until her fingers reached an ornate gold key. Poised on her old leather chair, she reached out and slipped a strip of carved polished molding sidewise. The ornate wood glided to expose a narrow drawer with an etched gold lock. There was a soft click as the drawer slid open revealing its red velvet lining. It contained one object, a small grey cell phone. She extracted it and pressed a pre-programmed number. The phone was answered with one word “Yes?” She responded with “We have a situation…” and disconnected.

  90 minutes later, she turned onto a long, winding, gravel path and bumped along the ruts until she reached an abandoned 18th Century plank and stone farmhouse. Once white, its paint was now faded and chipped. Many of its shutters were gone others hung by a single hinge. The windows were covered with strips of weathered plywood. The yard, overgrown with grass and weeds, sections of collapsed outbuildings were discernible beneath vines and weeds. The porch sagged with broken boards and spider webs littered with dead insects hung between rafters and railings. The air smelled musty and dry. She climbed the rickety steps and knocked on the door, its echo sounded hollow, reverberating into silence. Moments later she heard footsteps and the door swung open to reveal a long dimly lit hallway. Standing in the shadows, hand on the doorknob, stood a woman with stylishly cut short grey hair wearing an embroidered blue blouse. The women nodded to each other wordlessly and walked unceremoniously to a thick wooden door which opened to a long steep staircase. At the bottom of the stairs a curved hallway led to a heavily reinforced stainless steel door. In the top right corner a security camera scanned back and forth and on the left side of the door, a keypad and scanner had been installed.

  Each woman placed her hand on a fingerprint scanner and a loud click could be heard as the locking mechanism responded. The space they entered was large and well lit a portrait in opposites. Hi tech computer equipment, modern and sleek mingled with cozy homespun Early American furniture, sturdy and colorful. There were no windows, but on one side of the room the walls were hung with large framed social advocacy posters representing various causes like “Save the Whales,” “Citizens for Humanity” and “HELP DARFUR”. On the other side of the room hung a huge detailed map of the United States and an over-sized white magnetic board. A long maple dining table, surrounded by plaid cushioned chairs, occupied the center. It was strewn with papers and maps and laden with coffee cups and plates of sandwiches. Behind it stood a matching buffet set up with a Mr. Coffee coffee-maker, cups, napkins and plates of cookies. Catty corner to the table sat a bank of computers and communication equipment - all state of the art. Huge flashing screens flooded the room with bigger than life images of people and locations. Masses of written data scrolled, punctuated by rhythmic beeps. Across the room were large comfy sofas, chairs and small tables. People milled around talking and eating. There was an air of excitement and familiarity.

  “She’s here,” the escort announced and all activity stopped. Reina now turned and hugged her younger sister. Manny, Stella, Simon and Samuel all talking at once walked over to greet her.

  “So, we have a situation, huh?” Sammy grinned at her.

  “Tell us all about it,” Stella urged, guiding her toward the table.

  Gil McCray grinned to her from across the room; beside him stood a large Hispanic man named Pablo Ruiz. He was one of McCray’s ‘To Protect and Serve’ team. A bulky man with greying sideburns, Pablo had worked for years with the Drug Enforcement Administration patrolling the Texas-Mexican border before his wife and daughter had been killed in a shootout when the Los Primo Cartel brought their drug war across the border. Pablo had never been the same. He took a leave of absence from the DEA and wandered aimlessly from bar to bar until moving north where he had met Gil McCray. That had given him new direction. He quit the DEA and went to work for Gil. Pablo was a ‘people person’ who did his best work in the field, socializing with ‘the people.’ He had contacts everywhere. Having helped many Hispanics who were overwhelmed in this new country, he paved the way with ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), helped people sign up for English Language classes, get jobs and find housing. Pablo Ruiz could walk into any public building in the city and find friends. They were janitors, painters, day laborers or security guards. He knew their names, their wives’ names, their favorite foods. They loved him, trusted him.

  He was everyone’s friend, stopping by with packages of dry goods, hanging out drinking beer. And if Pablo needed a favor, something like an unlocked door or the name of a delivery company, well those were small favors after all, and he was their friend. Nothing was too much for Pablo. He now stood with Gil McCray, his boss and closest friend, waved a hand at Elisabeth and waited for the meeting to start. Tension swirled around them. They, more than the others, could feel danger in the air.

  This group called itself ‘Chevra Hatzolah.’ Translated from Hebrew it means ‘group of rescuers’. The people assembled in this place were the core of Chicago’s chapter. Chevra Hatzolah, was a clandestine international organization, formed by survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. Their mission was to help innocent people whose lives were in danger through no fault of their own and who had no one else to help them. Although it was founded as a Jewish organization, religious affiliation was not a criterion for assistance and played no role in the rescue selection process. There was only one condition for receiving help that was that the individual be in life threatening circumstances as a result of political persecution, discrimination, abuse, cruelty or some other type of victimization and lack alternate resources. Although they had many ties with established law enforcement agencies and often linked data bases in mutually beneficial ways, Chevra Hatzolah, operated under its own code of justice. That code guided their actions.

  Sitting around the table, Elisabeth was finishing her detailed report proposing a young neonatologist named Gina Reynolds aka Reggie Lee Raines be granted protection status. After some group discussion they voted unanimously to accept Dr. Reynolds as a protectee. “Several recent developments have occurred that make her situation more critical. The first is that she received an email yesterday from her contact that confirmed her suspicion that her cousin and his friends are the killers the media is referring to as the Parkland Killers. Unfortunately, there has been a development at her work that is likely to propel her into the national spotlight. Briefly she explain
ed about the twins and Gina’s role in the case. Keeping her safe will become an increasing challenge.

  “Gil?” she faced him indicating he should take over,

  “Apparently,” he said leaning forward, “there is a security firm on scene at the hospital but she’s a primary player in this surgery case. If her face is flashed across TV screens the likelihood that the killers will find her increases exponentially. So the worry is two-fold 1) that security is not tight enough to keep the press away from her, which can lead the killers right to her and 2) if security is not tight enough to control the media it’s certainly not tight enough for the killers. In fact, the presence of a media blitz provides more access for the killers. I think we’ll have to take over hospital security or become part of it. We need a strategy for that and I’m open to suggestions. We will start recruiting and training our own personnel immediately so we will be equipped to provide not just escorts but trained and armed escorts.”

  They spent the next hour discussing the issues then broke for independent research. Manny sat in front of three computer monitors. One displayed a US map with small colored lights scattered across its surface, showing their members’ location. Another screen showed cell phone towers over a 9 state radius and was loaded with a program able to identify certain word patterns, the third monitor tracked law enforcement communication, allowing them to keep informed about official developments, police force movements and emerging leads. Gil sat nearby talking softly into his cell phone as he stared at other screens, showing news reports and police chatter about the hunt for the Parkland Killers. If the Parkland Killers were indeed the people who were after Gina he would learn everything he could about them.

  Reina, who as a sitting Judge for the District Court had computer links to national court databases, began to seek out and unseal certain court documents from Putnam County, West Virginia. The documents in question had been sealed for many years and tracking them was difficult. Using several ID’s and passwords, she worked to access the names and addresses of signatories involved in the initial proceedings regarding Reggie Lee Raines. Anyone involved with these proceedings could be at risk so they needed to be identified as soon as possible. She needed to know who else might have copies of those documents and if there was a record on file that indicated where the girl had gone and with whom she had lived. She would see what records might be available involving legal custody, name change status and emancipation processes. At some point the teenager Reggie Lee Raines had become Gina Reynolds. When and how had that happened? Whoever had a role in her life or its changes could now be locked in the killers’ crosshairs. She needed to find them because if she could locate them presumably they could, too.