“This is Detective Burkhardt. There’s another computer we need to check and cross-reference with Lamar Crawford’s. Yes, this is related to the bare bones murders.” Nick read the address for Forrester Cade Realty, Sheila’s place of employment. “See you there in fifteen minutes.”
* * *
Located in the Pearl District, Forrester Cade Realty’s office stood between a luxury spa and a trendy art gallery, and its workmanlike aesthetic suffered in comparison. The interior featured modern furniture and fixtures, similar to those at LC Leasing, Inc., but the walls and doors had been painted with bright and bold colors, adding a warmth that had been lacking in Crawford’s workplace.
Nick arrived before the computer tech and introduced himself to Noel Forrester, one of the partners—Robin Cade, the other partner, was vacationing in Italy—and explained that he was working the Sheila Jenkins case and needed access to Sheila’s computer and written records. Forrester oversaw the small staff of leasing agents with an amiable air. With his silver hair, ruddy cheeks and ample girth, he would’ve been a natural as a department store Santa Claus.
If the man had something to hide or had any involvement with the Silver Plate Society conspirators, he could have stonewalled Nick and demanded a search warrant, but he wanted Sheila’s murder solved as much as anyone and immediately agreed.
“Anything you need,” Forrester said. “Let me know.”
At that moment, a tall, hunched man with curly black hair and round glasses, wearing a green-checked shirt, jeans and brown loafers stepped into the office and looked around as if startled by his surroundings. He carried a black messenger bag, the strap slung casually over one shoulder. When he spotted Nick, he made a beeline toward him.
“We a go?” he asked.
Nick nodded. To Forrester, he said, “Gary Popa, one of our computer guys.”
Forrester introduced himself and shook Gary’s hand.
Gary glanced at Nick. “Where’s the workstation?”
“Follow me,” Forrester said, leading them past several occupied desks to a low-walled but roomy cubicle in the back right corner of the office. “So you think Sheila had prior contact with the person who murdered her?”
“Either she knew her murderer,” Nick said. “Or she knew something the murderer wanted kept secret. That’s our working theory.”
“Suppose that makes sense,” Forrester said, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. “As much as a senseless tragedy like this can make sense.”
Gary sat at Sheila’s desk and reached for her keyboard.
“You’ll need this,” Forrester said, leaning over the desk to write Sheila’s username and password on a sticky note.
Gary took the note, thanked him, and started typing.
“You know, Sheila was full of energy,” Forrester said to Nick. “Never complained. Always willing to go the extra mile, take on any challenge. I miss… I miss seeing her around here. Sometimes I come in the office and look over here, at her desk, expecting… Then it hits me again.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Nick said.
As Forrester started to walk away, Nick tapped his arm.
“We may need to take the computer back to the precinct for analysis.”
“That’s fine,” Forrester said absently. “Her client files are backed up. Don’t really care about a piece of hardware. What’s it worth? Couple thousand, tops. If it helps catch Sheila’s killer, you can keep it.”
“You’ll get a receipt,” Nick assured him. “And it will be returned.”
“Just let me know if it helps you catch the bastard,” Forrester said and wandered away absently, shaking his head.
Nick’s cell phone rang: Wu.
“Burkhardt.”
“Nick,” Wu said, a note of alarm in his voice. “Somebody broke into Hank’s place. Back door was jimmied.”
Nick walked away from the tech’s rapid keyboard clacking. “What?”
“And Scarpelli says Hank’s missing.”
“Missing? How does he know—?”
“He found Hank’s gun, cell phone, keys—and crutches—on the floor in the foyer. And Hank’s car is out front. All patrol cars have been notified to be on the lookout for him.”
“Are you there now?”
“On my way.”
“I’ll meet you there.” Nick turned to the tech. “Gotta go. You okay here?”
“I’m good,” Gary said. “I can take this tower with me?”
“That’s what the man said,” Nick replied. “Call me soon as you find anything.”
Nick hurried to his SUV, and raced to Hank’s house.
* * *
Unsure what he hoped to find at Hank’s place, Nick checked everything the junior patrolman and the crime scene unit had already examined. As Hank’s partner, Nick hoped he might notice something the others had missed.
He started with Hank’s VW CC. Doors were locked. No sign of a struggle in the car. After the Swartley interview, Hank had left the precinct alone. Nick had watched him drive off the lot from his Land Cruiser. If he’d planned to stop anywhere before home, he hadn’t mentioned it to Nick.
Wu came outside and met Nick as he approached the house.
“Crime scene is dusting contact points for prints,” Wu said. “Back door—point of entry and, probably, exit—has been wiped down. Prints on the front door, probably Hank’s. We’ll know later.”
“Neighbors?”
“Scarpelli and Billbrough are canvassing nearby houses,” Wu said. “No reports of gunfire or any altercation in the street. One neighbor”—Wu checked his notes—“Ted Malone, saw a plumber’s van outside a house across the street. So far, nobody on the block called a plumber last night.”
“Don’t suppose Malone got a plate number.”
“No,” Wu said. “Had no reason to be suspicious at the time.”
Inside Hank’s house, Nick noted Hank’s firearm, phone, keys and crutches scattered around the floor, near an overturned table by the front door. Nick tried to imagine the sequence of events: Hank struggling into the house on his crutches, setting down his gun, phone and keys on the table. Then he fell or… he’d engaged in a struggle.
“Any blood?” he asked a tech kneeling nearby.
“Negative for blood,” the man said. “But the foyer light bulb is missing.”
Hank had come home to a dark house, on crutches, unable to turn on the lights, caught unprepared for his attacker…
Nick walked toward the back of the house. No signs of a struggle beyond the entry point, but a couple items of furniture had been bumped or pushed aside to clear a path to the rear door, where the lock had been jimmied. Through the back door, Nick examined the ground: a few partial prints leading toward the back door, more definitive prints leading away.
“Only one set of prints,” Wu said.
“Hank was unconscious,” Nick said. “If he was awake, he’d have struggled. We’d see evidence of that inside or out here.” Nick followed the footprints. “His assailant didn’t drag him out to the van though. No heel drag marks.”
“He carried him?”
Nick nodded. “The depth of the prints increases on the way out. His weight basically doubled. Strong enough to carry Hank to the van. Twenty, maybe thirty seconds, from back door to the van. Over so fast, nobody witnesses the abduction.”
“Why Hank?”
“Good question,” Nick said.
They’d worked the case together. But Hank had interviewed Crawford’s family alone. Was the killer keeping tabs on them? Lamar Crawford had certainly feared for his family’s safety. But Hank had returned to the precinct with his information. If the killer thought he’d uncovered something, why not grab him before he could tell anyone else?
Or had Hank returned to the Crawford residence to follow up on the Rio photos? Nick doubted that. After the phone conversation, the widow had planned to check for the photos herself. And if Hank had found information crucial to the case he would have phoned Nick, not retired fo
r the night.
“Makes no sense. Grabbing a homicide detective,” Wu said, “inside his own home.”
“His guard would be down,” Nick said. “Caught in the dark, ambushed.”
“But why Hank?” Wu repeated.
During the course of the investigation, Hank had become known to the killer, apparently observed by the killer, even before the abduction. Why Hank? Nick closed his eyes and imagined the two bulletin boards in the conference room, filled with the names and photos of the recovered victims. Various ages, both genders, multiple ethnicities. Greek, Korean, Japanese, Russian, Hispanic, Vietnamese. A vast variety of victims for the cannibal Wesen to devour. There had been an African American woman, too. But as far as Nick could recall, none of the victims had been African American and male.
Until now.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Frustrated with waiting for the crime scene test results at Hank’s house and the tech results from Sheila Jenkins’ computer, Nick returned to the precinct to re-examine, yet again, the accumulated evidence in the conference room.
He’d placed the Portland map on the Claremont Park board before he’d left and he continued to stare at it and the four Xs he’d drawn to mark the addresses listed on the four flyers. He turned his head to the side a bit, stood up and grabbed a red marker from the narrow tray. Leaning over, he drew lines to connect the four addresses. Connected, they formed a rectangle. He picked up a blue marker, proceeded to draw a curving shape to connect all four points and managed a rough circle, almost an ellipse.
Maybe the round shape was an analog for the circle on the flyers.
He recalled the one triangle that faced away from the circle, the Leeren Stuhl, or open chair, and wondered if the equivalent spot on the map circle marked the location of the feast. He grabbed a legal pad and wrote down the approximate address of that southwest point on the circle.
At that moment, he heard quick footsteps behind him. At first he thought Wu had come with news on Hank, but as he turned he saw that it was Monroe, with an anxious look in his eyes.
“Nick, we’re running out of time before—where’s Hank?”
“Taken,” Nick said gravely. “Killer grabbed him at his house last night.”
“The killer? The bare bones killer? As in, the Silver Plate Society killer?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Nick said. He approached Monroe and lowered his voice. “I believe Hank was taken, in part, because he’s African American. For the menu variety.”
Monroe looked up at the board, the photos of the victims.
“So they haven’t—they didn’t take a—?”
“Not a male. Not until Hank,” Nick said. “I have to hope he’s still alive.”
“The Leeren Stuhl days are almost over,” Monroe said. “The empty chair invitation is the last week. Judging by how long the flyers have been in circulation, there’s only a day left—two at the outside. Once it’s over, these guys vanish for twenty-five years. Scattered to the four corners.”
“I’m well aware that the clock is ticking.”
“Right. But I wanted to—this is even worse than I thought, because if Hank is the, if it’s the last day, then that means that he’s…”
“Spit it out, Monroe.”
“Once I knew the Silver Plate Society was responsible for the—for everything, I went back and checked for references about them and, it turns out, the last day of the feasting month is reserved for the Straffe Kette Abendessen, the ‘Tight Chain Supper.’”
“Do you know what that means? Exactly?”
Captain Renard walked into the conference room.
“I do,” he said. “It’s the live meal.”
“How do you—?”
“Finally heard back from some of my own sources,” Renard said. “Various rumors and myths about the Silver Plate Society, embellished over the years by urban legend and blatant exaggeration, but some things kept turning up, and the Tight Chain Supper was among them.”
“But a live meal means…”
“He’s chained to a table, alive and awake,” Monroe said. “And they cut into him with knives and claws and, well, cannibalism doesn’t get much more hardcore than that.”
“If that’s happening tonight,” Nick said, “We’ve only got a few hours to find him…” Before it’s too late, he finished silently.
Sergeant Wu approached, rapped his knuckles on the doorjamb.
“Got something.”
Nick, Renard and Monroe gave him their undivided attention.
“Just got off the phone with Gary down in Computer Forensics,” Wu said. “The same phony residential addresses and names that they turned up on Crawford’s half-nuked hard drive, he’s also found on Sheila Jenkins’ computer.”
“Fake addresses and IDs get us nowhere,” Renard said.
“True,” Wu said. “But Sheila Jenkins was not as security conscious as Crawford. No encryption. No self-destruct program. Apparently, Crawford—who dealt only with business leasing—knew Sheila. He contacted her to arrange some premium, short-term, and secret residential leases, luxury homes, high-end condos and apartments.”
“Short term,” Nick said. “As in one month?”
“Give or take a week,” Wu said, nodding. “Crawford convinced her the clients were celebrities who demanded anonymity and were willing to pay a premium for it.”
“Celebrities?” Monroe asked. “Really?”
“Based on her notes, that’s what Crawford told her. Business had been slow and, with substantial security deposits in hand, she didn’t ask a lot of questions.”
“How does this help us?” Renard asked.
“In one of her personal folders, Gary found a file called ‘Celebrities’ which, it turns out, is a translation key to the phony addresses. Beside each phony address is the actual address of the property.”
“Warrants?” Nick said, glancing at Captain Renard.
“We’ve been waiting for a break on this case,” Renard said. “The DA has a judge on standby. We’ve got probable cause. They’d move fast. But with a kidnapped police officer at risk in a murder spree, we’ve got an emergency exception.” He turned to Wu. “How many addresses?”
“At least a dozen.”
“Teams of two, minimum,” Renard said. “Let’s hit as many addresses simultaneously as possible. Go!”
Wu rushed off to start making arrangements for coordinated raids, while Renard returned to his office to update his superiors. Monroe caught Nick’s arm on his way out of the conference room.
“Nick, the feast won’t be at any of those rental homes,” Monroe said. “You’re looking for a secluded location, with an official host. That’s where they’ll have Hank and any other kidnap victims who are still alive.”
“I realize that,” Nick said. “But if we catch any members of the society, we’ll have them take us to that location.”
“The Silver Plate Society has survived for hundreds of years,” Monroe said. “Maybe longer. Even if you catch them, they won’t talk.”
“Oh, they’ll talk,” Nick said as he hurried out. “Believe me, they’ll talk.”
* * *
They spent the next two hours raiding spacious rental homes, luxury condos and apartments. Nick partnered with Wu for backup. They personally checked three of the addresses, and faced one disappointment after another. Each location showed signs of recent habitation and more recent abandonment. Dishes in the sink, an occasional tipped over trashcan, closet doors open, hangers spilled across the floor, and, under one bed, a forgotten pair of red Manolo Blahnik sandals. The contents of a few trashcans had been burned in place.
Other teams recovered some articles of clothing, coffee, alcohol and bottled water, but few food items. Nick imagined they wouldn’t eat anything much more than what was being served on the cannibal menu and would always plan to arrive at the feasting location with a hearty appetite. They’d waited twenty-five years to indulge themselves on human flesh. No sense filling up on the bread basket.
Unfortunately, none of the teams recovered anything identifiable to any particular individual. The members of the Silver Plate Society had traveled to Portland under false identities. Maybe Crawford’s computer had a key to convert the false identities to real, prosecutable names, but if so, the techs hadn’t found it.
When Nick had a moment away from Wu, he called Monroe to tell him the raids had been a waste of time, too much time. The crime scene techs would dust the rental properties for prints and swab for DNA on any items left behind, but identification remained a longshot unless some of the cannibals were already in the system.
“Nick, if they’ve abandoned those rentals, today must be the last day,” Monroe said. “From what I’ve read, they’ll gather together at the feasting location, a farewell celebration, like closing ceremonies.”
“How could they know we were coming?”
“Could be the last day timing,” Monroe said. “Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or they’ve been told Hank’s a cop,” Monroe said. “And they’re covering their tracks as a precaution. In a way, this is good news.”
“Good news?” Nick asked, incredulous. “How?”
“I’m just saying, they won’t forfeit their last day,” Monroe replied. “This is it for them, Nick, the big finish—the pièce de résistance—after which they’ll go their separate ways for twenty-five years. So no, they won’t deprive themselves of their last glorious day of feasting. The Straffe Kette Abendessen is highly anticipated by these guys. It will go on as planned. And if they’re saving Hank for that last ‘tight chain’ meal—”
“Then he’s still alive.”
“Guaranteed.”
“For how long?” Nick asked, dreading the answer.
“That’s the bad news,” Monroe said. “Hank’s running out of time.”
* * *
Nick took the Portland map from the Claremont Park board to Monroe’s house. He set it on the table, hoping that between the two of them they might come up with the location for the cannibal feasts. Above the map, he laid out the four flyers. Monroe stood beside him, hands stuffed in the front pockets of his light cable-knit sweater, frowning in concentration.
Grimm: The Chopping Block Page 22