A Killer’s Wife

by Methos, Victor

  She’d been suspended now for four days, and as far as Yardley could tell, she spent most of the day reading texts on advanced scientific topics or painting. It was as though she’d been liberated to study the things she was really interested in.

  Tara’s paintings always made Yardley uneasy. Most of them got thrown in the trash, but she kept a few of them and hung them in her room. Yardley couldn’t tell why some were thrown away and some were kept.

  So far, none of them resembled Eddie Cal’s works, but her fear was that one day she would come home and see Tara working on something that Cal had also painted. She couldn’t remember now when it was exactly that Tara had started painting, and it bothered her that she’d forgotten.

  They hadn’t exchanged more than basic words since the fight about Kevin, but Yardley took her presence now as a good sign.

  “The other day, Mr. Jackson mentioned again that you should test into a university or go to a gifted school. That they can’t challenge you anymore and you’re acting out.” Yardley turned and looked at her daughter while leaning back against the wood railing. “Is that what all this is, Tara? Are you bored and acting out?”

  Those blue eyes stared unblinkingly at her. “I won’t go to a gifted school, but maybe it is time to transfer to UNLV. I’m interested in some topics that I’ll need researchers in those subjects to help me understand. I’m not sure I want to leave Kevin, though. He graduates next year, so I might wait.”

  Yardley didn’t show the disgust she felt at the thought of her daughter changing her path in life for someone like Kevin. “UNLV is a good school. You’ll have fun and make a lot of new friends.”

  Tara answered while staring at the rainbow. “I’m a fifteen-year-old daughter of a murderer that’s going to test directly into a doctorate program and get better grades than everyone there, Mom. I’m not going to be making any friends.” She paused a moment, her eyes never leaving the rainbow. “You left your iPad unlocked the other day with the case files open. There’s a copycat?”

  Yardley felt anger rise in her, and she had to breathe a moment to let it subside. “Tell me you didn’t look at the files?”

  “I saw Eddie’s name on the open page. I think if anyone has a right to know what’s going on with him, it’s me.”

  “Tara, that is not—”

  “I heard you talking to Wesley about it, too. That you’ve gotten Eddie involved. What does he want in exchange for his help?”

  “That’s none of your concern. This isn’t for you to worry about.”

  “We’re past that, Mom. You can’t protect me from him. He’s my father, and nothing is going to change that.”

  Yardley felt weak. She sat down at the table next to her daughter and finished her wine before setting the glass down. “What he wants is irrelevant.”

  “Does he want to see me?”

  There was a slight tinge of hope in her voice that broke Yardley’s heart. She took Tara’s hand. “Sweetheart, he will hurt you. That’s what he does. Family, friends, wife, daughter—none of that matters to him.”

  Tara nodded. “I sent him a Father’s Day card once. I was eight. I remember you sat me down when I was ten to tell me everything about him, but I knew long before that. I found an old driver’s license of yours in a drawer with the last name Cal, and it didn’t take long to figure it out. I waited for weeks to see if he would send something back, but he never did.” She exhaled loudly. “It’s a shame. I’d be curious to see what traits we share. Does he have an aptitude for mathematics, too? Is his favorite color purple? Does he hate the texture of raisins or the smell of rain on pavement?” She paused. “Is his darkness inside me, too? Dormant and waiting for its chance to get out?”

  “Tara—”

  She pulled away and stuffed her hands into her pockets. “Are you going to find the man that’s copying his crimes?”

  Yardley watched her in silence a moment. “Yes, we will.”

  “If he’s really emulating Eddie, the ultimate prize might be for him to get to us. To kill the family of Eddie Cal,” she said solemnly, looking down to her shoes.

  “Tara, look at me . . . I will never, never allow anyone to hurt you. Nothing is going to happen to us. We will catch this man, and he will never hurt anyone again.”

  She watched the rainbow a moment in silence. “Better go. Need to look into a graduate program, it looks like.”

  She left Yardley alone on the balcony, watching gray clouds drift back toward the mountains. Making the rainbow fade to nothing.

  24

  Tara was in her room, Wesley was working in his home office, and Yardley was doing yoga in the living room when her cell phone rang. She intended to ignore it, but after it went to voice mail, it started ringing again.

  “This is Jessica,” she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice.

  “Jessica, it’s Sofie Gledhill from the prison. Sorry for bothering you on your personal cell, but there’s something you need to know right away.”

  “What is it?”

  “Eddie Cal received an email about half an hour ago. We screen them before he receives them. Jessica . . . it’s from the man that killed those two couples.”

  She felt a surge of adrenaline. “I’m on my way.”

  She quickly texted Baldwin and then changed into a black skirt and white blouse, running her fingers through her hair before going to Wesley’s office. She knocked first, as he hated his concentration to be broken abruptly, and he said, “Come in.”

  He was seated at the desk with his bifocals on, staring at the blue light glittering from the monitor in the darkened room. The sun was nearly set, and only a faint orange glow came through the windows.

  “I have to leave. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Where you heading?”

  “The prison.”

  He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. He took his bifocals off and placed them on the desk.

  “To visit him?”

  “He may have received an email from the person we’re looking for.”

  “What does that have to do with the screening prosecutor?”

  “They may need a warrant. I can get an e-warrant within minutes if I’m actually there.”

  He considered her. “I’m not some first-year law student, Jessica. You don’t need a warrant to check prison email.”

  “No, but you might to get records from the internet service provider.” She went up and kissed him on the cheek. “Few hours, promise.”

  Baldwin wore a suit coat but no tie when he picked Yardley up. She noticed he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and the dark circles under his eyes had gotten worse. His car smelled of Polo cologne and freshly cleaned leather. Ortiz sat in the passenger seat, wearing a Detroit Lions T-shirt underneath a suit coat.

  Baldwin handed her his phone when she sat down in the back seat. An email was up on the screen. It read:

  Mr. Cal,

  I hope all is well with you. I know a little something about existing behind walls myself. I learned rather quickly that you must live inside your mind. That’s something they can never take away from you.

  I assume you haven’t read anything of my work. Such a shame, I truly feel you would be proud of the continuation of your work I’ve taken upon myself.

  You must receive voluminous amounts of mail, and perhaps even boasts such as these from potential admirers. To show you the veracity of my claims, I’ve attached a photo you may enjoy.

  Will be in touch soon if I hear back from you.

  With warm regards,

  Your Admirer

  Yardley scrolled down and saw the attached photo. A quiet gasp left her.

  Aubrey Olsen. The photo had been taken from no more than two feet away. The black panties they had found were wrapped around her mouth, her eyes wide with terror, blood caked over her face and in her hair. Lying next to her, facedown in the bed, was her husband. The lighting of the photograph indicated it had been taken at night.

  “W
e’ll need to have OTD verify it,” Baldwin said. “I sent it to them as soon as I got it with a request for expedition. I also called Greg down here.”

  OTD, the Operational Technology Division, was the technological wing of the Bureau that helped with forensic examination of technology. Greg Newhall was the OTD liaison for the Las Vegas Bureau office.

  Yardley had relied on him heavily in the identification and apprehension of several rapists that had recorded their crimes on cell phones and uploaded them to the internet. Something that occurred much more frequently than the general public knew.

  “It’s her,” she said softly.

  When they arrived at the prison, Newhall was waiting for them outside. He wore a short-sleeve button-up shirt and had the thick glasses that a seventh grader would wear. His bald head shone in the harsh lighting of the prison parking lot, and he held an aluminum briefcase.

  “Took you long enough,” he said. The only one he smiled at was Yardley. “How are ya, Ms. Yardley?”

  “Fine, Greg. Thank you for asking.”

  He had only ever called her Ms. Yardley, and she had noticed him looking at her whenever it seemed she wasn’t paying attention. Once, at the gym across the street from the federal building, she had caught him watching her bend over to lift some weights off the floor. He’d blushed and wandered away. When she’d been leaving, he had made an awkward attempt to ask her to dinner, but she had told him she was already dating someone and it wouldn’t be appropriate. He’d blushed again and apologized.

  The four of them entered the prison and met Gledhill at the check-in desk. She waved them through the metal detectors and scanned her ID badge on the elevator.

  The second floor housed the computer room, where most inmates were granted minutes based on good behavior. Because of their constant communication with their attorneys and a Supreme Court decision that granted them access to legal research, news, and archives, death row inmates were given unlimited access, but it had to be monitored.

  Inside the computer room, a young guard and an older man in a sweat suit stood by. The guard looked nervous and had his thumbs tucked into the utility belt on his waist. The older man just looked annoyed.

  Gledhill said, “It was that computer station there.”

  Newhall put down his briefcase next to the computer. He opened the case, revealing a microcosm of wires, motherboards, polished steel tubes and connectors, a monitor, and a host of other items Yardley couldn’t identify.

  Cal’s email was already up on the prison’s computer. Newhall clicked a few areas on the email, and a string of densely packed letters and numbers popped up in a new window. The code of the email. Newhall’s normally anxious demeanor and body language instantly changed as he leaned forward, his fingers on his chin, and read the code on the screen like a medieval monk translating a lost document.

  “See, you read these headers chronologically,” he said. “Every new server it goes through adds its own snippet of code. So what you want to do is go to the top. That’s the first gateway. That’s the one you want.”

  Newhall opened a program on the monitor in his aluminum box; the window was labeled MyCoolToolBox. He connected the prison computer to the box, then cut and pasted the code from the computer into the toolbox, and another page of code popped up on the monitor. Newhall then connected a small device to the USB port of the computer. The code moved on both screens, with new code scrolling up from the bottom. He let it run for about thirty seconds before saying, “It’s right there.”

  A string of numbers separated by periods appeared on-screen. A pop-up on the toolbox said, IP not listed on blacklist.

  “That means it wasn’t sent from an IP that’s been used before by scammers. See, he tried to throw us off by sending it through different servers, probably used some program he downloaded for free from the web. Really simple stuff. He might as well have written it on a rock and thrown it through a window.”

  Newhall mumbled to himself and then hummed as he typed into the toolbox. Yardley recognized the tune as “She Blinded Me with Science” by Thomas Dolby.

  “Okay,” Newhall said after a minute. “Easy peasy. This is the gateway of origin and the IP it was sent from. They tried to create a false trail but, like I said, really amateurish stuff. They probably just researched it online and used what was there. Your guy isn’t someone with any technical knowledge.”

  Gledhill said, “Why now? The murders started weeks ago. Why contact him now?”

  Yardley and Baldwin glanced at each other. Baldwin looked down at the photo of Aubrey, which came up as Newhall scrolled through the email code.

  “Because he knows Eddie’s involved in the investigation now. And there’s only one group of people that know about that. Law enforcement.” He looked back to Yardley. “He’s one of us.”

  25

  When Baldwin dropped Yardley off at home, he said he would inform her of any updates and then added, “And Jess, I’m really sorry about lying to you. I shouldn’t have done that. I hope you can forgive me for it.”

  She didn’t respond as she got out of the car and went inside.

  No sounds came from Tara’s room. She opened her daughter’s door. Tara slept on her side, her face turned toward Yardley. It was the face of the baby Yardley remembered. Only in sleep did she see that child anymore. When Tara was awake, Yardley became painfully aware that she was becoming her own woman, a person separate from her. It felt like a piece of Yardley being pulled out of her and drifting off into the world by itself.

  Tara’s paintings hung around the room, and Yardley purposely didn’t look at them.

  She shut Tara’s door and went into her own bedroom. Wesley was already asleep. Yardley changed and slipped into bed, lying quietly and staring out into the night. The moon was a silver-white crescent glowing dimly pale through the glass doors leading to the home’s second, smaller balcony.

  Wesley’s hand came up to hers, and their fingers interlaced. His eyes opened, and he watched her a moment before kissing the back of her hand.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he whispered.

  He closed his eyes again, and she fell asleep that way, holding his hand with the moonlight streaming into the room and casting shadows in the corners.

  OTD traced the IP address to an apartment in Primm about an hour outside of Las Vegas. It belonged to an Austin Ketner. The name sounded familiar to Yardley, and before she could think to look up why, another text came through. Baldwin had run his name, and the search revealed dozens of news stories: he was one of Eddie Cal’s victims.

  Yardley sat at her desk and read the story in the Las Vegas Sun. His parents had been Cal’s third and fourth victims.

  The investigators thought Cal had seen the family somewhere, possibly at a Mexican restaurant the Ketners had eaten at the night before their deaths. It was purely conjecture, Yardley knew. Since Cal had never spoken a word to anyone about his crimes, they had no idea how or when he chose his victims. The convictions were based primarily on DNA evidence typed from semen. Cal was what was known as a secretor and left semen at every residence. There was also a witness who Cal had missed when he’d been climbing through a window of one of the victims’ homes. The witness had seen his car parked around the block and taken down the license plate. A subsequent search of his private art studio had found several items from victims as well as a kill kit with duct tape, rope, knives, and blade sharpeners.

  Austin Ketner’s older brother had found their parents dead.

  A photo of Austin was embedded in the article she read. He couldn’t have been older than ten or eleven. His eyes dull and vacant as he glanced at the camera. He’d be in his midtwenties now.

  Yardley closed the windows on her computer and leaned back in her chair. A single thought wouldn’t leave her: What was I doing that night?

  Where had she been on the Tuesday night the Ketners had been killed? She had likely kissed Cal and told him she loved him as he left to murder Austin’s parents.<
br />
  She let out a long breath and then texted Baldwin back: I want to meet with him as soon as he’s in custody.

  26

  Primm was an unincorporated area with only about two thousand people, so the Las Vegas Police Department handled their police calls. Baldwin had gotten them to provide a strike force of five officers. He and Ortiz drove their own car while the officers drove unmarked sedans to Ketner’s address.

  Ortiz drove while Baldwin read about Ketner. White male, midtwenties, loner, several alcohol-related convictions for DUI or public drunkenness, one ex-wife and a child he owed several years of back child support to. He wasn’t law enforcement, and that had bothered Baldwin, but it turned out Ketner worked for a commercial cleaning company with contracts for the government buildings in Las Vegas—including the federal building. Ketner could very well have been inside Baldwin’s office after hours, gained access to his files, and learned that Eddie Cal was helping them in the investigation.

  “I thought I was done with this shit,” Ortiz said.

  “With what?” Baldwin replied, not looking up from his phone.

  “Wearing vests and kicking down doors, man. I did it for five years with the narcs unit in Detroit. I just wanted a nice office job where I wouldn’t have to pull my weapon every other day. It’s not that I don’t like it, but I need to stay safe, for Rebecca and my little girl.”

  “They put you where they need you. Besides, you’re up for transfer in a year, right? Maybe you’ll get lucky and they’ll put you in bank fraud or something.”

  Ortiz took a sip out of a Big Gulp. “You think he’s really our boy?”

  “Email came from his apartment, and he’s potentially got access to our files, and North LVPD’s files. And he meets the rough outline Dr. Sarte provided.”

  “What about Jessica?”

  “What about her?”