by Brian N. Cox
“No problem, Li Mei. Have a safe trip and call me when you get back. I’ll miss you,” said Sean, quite disappointed at the phone call. He was really looking forward to spending time alone with Li Mei, with or without dinner. These last minute cancellations were not unusual for Li Mei however. He couldn’t complain because he was equally guilty. Emergencies that had to be attended to by FBI agents were also the cause of many last minute cancellations of plans on his part and had probably contributed to his divorce.
Millie Greenway sat in the chair at the hair salon for her regular Monday appointment. As usual, she was babbling on and on about her husband and his work as a detective in the Seattle Police Department. According to Millie, her husband, Detective Eric Greenway, was the second coming of Sherlock Holmes. If a serious crime couldn’t be solved, just assign it to her husband Eric and it would be solved in jig time. Detective Eric Greenway was actually a mediocre detective who barely kept his job in the Detective Division. He was nosy, which is generally the sign of a good investigator, but he was always trying to find out what other detectives were working on. His biggest failing, as a member of the Detective Division was that he was a blabbermouth. The first person to hear about what was happening in any high profile case was his wife Millie. Not long after that, his civilian friends would hear all the news, followed by Greenway’s neighbours.
“You’ll never guess what the police call that serial killer we have been reading about,” said Millie. She didn’t actually want anyone to guess…she wanted to tell them.
“He’s called the ‘Blowjob Killer’. He makes young women lie on their back on the bed, ties their wrists to the headboard and then…well I don’t want to tell you what he does in their mouths, but you can guess. Then he strangles them to death with his bare hands. After that, he puts mouthwash and booze in their mouths to kill the DNA. Without DNA evidence, you can imagine how hard it would be to convict him. For the sake of the young women in this city, I hope they assign Eric to this case. It’s just horrible…just horrible.
Millie was a loud talker and there weren’t many people in the salon that didn’t hear the story of the “Blowjob Killer”.
This was only the latest case to entertain the hairdressers and customers. She had been telling them about cases for several years. Some of them wish Millie would shut up as she never even stopped to take a breath. On the other hand, others were delighted because at least her stories were interesting and full of details they never read in the news.
“Attention everyone. She has just come out of the apartment block and is standing on the street. She’s looking up and down the street; looks like she may be waiting to be picked up,” said Wen Tai.
“We got a few good photos of her,” he continued. “Try and get some close-ups at the airport. She’s wearing black pants, a dark green hip-length shirt, not tucked in, black shoes and a black ball cap. I don’t see any markings on it. She’s carrying a small travel bag on a shoulder strap.”
“A cab is just picking her up. Stay with them in case they make a stop enroute to the airport.”
The debriefing of the investigators working on the serial killer case, now officially called the ‘Portland Killer’, had become a regular part of everyone’s routine. They would meet at nine am, and again at four-thirty pm if there was anything significant to report.
“A clerk at Pacific Marine recalls a guy buying about thirty feet of ¾ inch nylon rope about three or four months ago,” said Detective Rick Gonzalez. “The reason she remembered him was that he was, in her opinion, “really cute” and although he was familiar with boats and said he was buying it for an anchor, thirty feet wouldn’t be long enough. Sure enough, he returned about a month or so ago and purchased another thirty feet. He was tall, maybe six foot two, well built, Caucasian with dark brown hair. She guessed he’d be mid-thirties. He had a “great smile” according to the clerk. Each time he paid with cash, and unfortunately, they have no CCTV cameras. She agreed to meet with a sketch artist but wasn’t sure if she could be too helpful. He was in the store less than five minutes each time.”
“The description matches the guy on the Welcome Inn video,” added Diane Swanson.
“Sounds like the same guy,” agreed Sean, “but so far the description matches a few thousand residents of Seattle. Nevertheless, we should concentrate on tall, well-built men with dark brown hair, mid-thirties, when we review the Starbuck CCTV videos. That should narrow the field quite a bit. Most people have difficulty estimating age so make the range early thirties to early forties.”
“We talked about the possibility of the killer being a cop. It is my opinion he purposely drew the FBI into the case by leaving evidence that he crossed the State line to commit the offences. We would have known this earlier if the Eggletown Police hadn’t screwed up the investigation.”
“Why would he want the case to be investigated by the FBI?” enquired Luke Dibotsky.
“That we don’t know. If he is a Seattle cop, he might have wanted to get the investigation out of the hands of the Seattle Police in case someone started suspecting him. If investigators got a fairly good description somehow, he would worry that someone might begin suspecting him,” said Sean.
“That makes sense,” said Rita Tessier as everyone agreed, nodding their head.
“There is another possibility. He’s FBI and thought he could monitor the investigation if the FBI CID was involved,” continued Sean.
“I think that’s less likely,” said Diane Swanson. “I’m not saying there aren’t bad FBI agents; it’s just that it’s difficult to monitor an investigation of a Division you aren’t attached to. For example, we have no idea what Counterterrorism or Intelligence are doing and they don’t know what we’re doing.”
“Good point,” said Sean. “No one on CID matches that description. We’re just speculating now to cover all possibilities.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Senior Chinese State Security Agent, Wang Xu, sat in the comfortable green chair in the interior meeting office of the San Francisco Consulate with a coffee table between him and Agent Rhona Lu. This interior room was built after the Consulate had been built so that there were no exterior walls to offer the FBI, CIA or any other organization the opportunity to utilize electronic surveillance. To ensure this security, the walls, ceiling and floor was lined with a material to repel any type of technological eavesdropping, in fact, there was no telephone in the room because telephone lines have long been used to intercept conversations in a room. A room could be bugged using telephone lines by people who weren’t even in the same city as the target of their surveillance.
“Are we getting anything worthwhile from our new friend, Agent Paquette?” enquired Wang.
“I was impressed with him telling us about the second bug in the east meeting room. We didn’t know about that; it was a very high tech device. Our Fourth Bureau people were very interested in examining it. Of course our security staff never used that room for meetings, but there have been important meetings held there by our agricultural and finance people. I am concerned that important economic information escaped us.”
“It won’t help to worry about the past,” said Wang Xu. “We must ensure these vulnerabilities are excluded in the future.” Wang Xu was a realist who never panicked or worried; if problems were beyond anyone’s control, he just moved on to deal with the next problem. Wang had been a very efficient and successful Second Bureau agent when he had been a field intelligence officer. Not only was he highly intelligent, quick thinking and calm under stressful conditions, he was the type of person that could go almost unnoticed. Three minutes after seeing him, most people couldn’t describe him.
“He has given us most of the names of all the FBI agents working Counterintelligence on the west coast, from San Diego to Seattle. We already knew many of them, but the information he gave us was accurate. He has also given us the description of new vehicles used by their watchers, so all in all, he has been a valuable asset.”
&n
bsp; “Are the FBI running any operations against us at the present?”
“He says there are always operations on the go and he can give us some details as he learns more about them. He says the FBI is most concerned about our stealing military secrets. That doesn’t concern me too much as there isn’t much we don’t already have through the efforts of our cyber-intelligence people and previous intelligence operations. Directives from Beijing indicate our top priority is economic intelligence.”
“Yes, Beijing is very concerned about the American economy and the poor job their government is doing to rectify this,” replied Wang Xu. “Do you know Li Mei?” added Wang, using Zhen Xiaomei’s cover name.
“Very well,” replied Lu. “We trained together years ago in Beijing when we were both young Second Bureau agents. We had a lot in common as we had both been police officers, she in Chongqing and me in Shanghai.”
“Li Mei has been sent to Seattle to be in charge of gathering intelligence on The Black Society. Beijing is particularly concerned about the growth and power of the Mei Hua Triad. They are making $billions in the field of economic crime and must be contained,” said Wang.
“I don’t think the Mei Hua can be eliminated, but if anyone can put a dent in their operation, Li Mei is the person who can do it. She has good contacts in both the FBI and Shanghai Police, so next to Inspector Gao Hui, I don’t think anyone understands the Mei Hua more than Li Mei,” replied Agent Lu.
“Good, Little Sister. Keep me posted on developments with Agent Paquette.”
“Let’s go over what we have so far,” said Sean to the members of the Portland Killer JTF. Now that the investigation was an official Joint Task Force of the FBI and two Seattle Homicide detectives, the official name, “Portland Killer” had been assigned as they couldn’t use the colloquial police expression, “Blowjob Killer” in official reports.
“Here’s the overview,” began Special Agent Swanson.
“Leaving aside the Eggletown victim for now, the three victims in Seattle are:
Number one…Sharon Harrigan
Number two…Theresa Polisky
Number three…Lucy Furlong”
“They ranged in age from twenty-five to twenty-eight. They all had dark hair and were very attractive…noticeably so. None of them were promiscuous nor were they careless in their personal behaviour. They were more security conscious than the average young woman and all were known to keep the door chain on when talking to anyone outside their apartment.”
“They all had university educations and good paying jobs. All lived in apartment buildings where the rent was at least two-hundred dollars a month above the Seattle average, and all the buildings were within a four to five block radius of each other. Two of the victims lived in one-bedroom apartments and the other, Sharon Harrigan, lived in a two-bedroom apartment. All the apartments were above the second floor. We have not been able to find any connection the victims may have had with each other.”
“We have no knowledge of how the killer got into the apartment buildings or into the apartments. Whether the victims let him in, or he gained entrance before they got home and was waiting for them, we don’t know. Although there were security cameras in the front entrances, no one who could be considered a suspect was seen; there were no CCTV cameras outside the buildings or in the vicinity.”
“The only thing the victims had in common, that we know about, is they all frequently had coffee at a particular Starbucks located not too far from any of their apartment blocks.”
“The only description we have, or possible description, obtained from the Eggletown hotel and the marine store where we think he purchased some nylon rope, is that the suspect is over six feet, possibly six-two or three, medium length dark hair, Caucasian, and probably mid-thirties,” concluded Swanson.
“I’m not sure the sketch from the marine store girl will be of much help,” added Detective Gonzalez. “The sketch is of a very handsome male…sort of looks like a movie star type…with wavy hair, not straight. The picture looks very generic, nothing distinguishing like a big nose or ears that stick out.”
“OK,” said Sean. “If anyone, and I mean anyone, in this Field Office or at the Seattle Police or anywhere else asks you anything about this investigation, make note of who they are, what they said, and report it to me immediately.”
“When I drop into our Detective Division, from time to time, there is always someone asking me how the investigation is going. I brush them off politely but I’ve never been pressed for details,” said Tessier.
“I think this is natural curiosity amongst cops,” added Gonzalez. “Everyone wants to see this asshole caught. I think virtually everyone knows about his investigation at the Detective Division. Not the details we have been discussing, but they know the general MO.”
“The same thing happens around here too,” said Special Agent Swanson.
“I realize that,” replied Sean. “Make note of anyone who isn’t easy to brush off and presses you a bit for details, and make sure no details are told to anyone that isn’t sitting in this room.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Oh geez; we just got a call from Seattle Detectives,” said Detective Gonzalez as he sat at his desk in the FBI Field Office. “There’s been another killing and it looks like the same MO.”
“Let’s go,” said SA Swanson. “We’d better all roll on this. Take two cars. What’s the address Rick?”
“It’s the Newbury Terrace on Front Street. If I’m thinking of the right place, it’s a fairly new block,” replied Gonzalez as all four investigators of the Joint Task Force rode down the elevator.
As Swanson ran towards the FBI car in the Bureau underground garage, she updated Sean on her cell phone. Then she called the crime scene specialists at ERTU, and asked them to attend.
Within twenty minutes, the four JTF members were at the Newbury Terrace on the fifth floor where they encountered Sgt. Tony Farrow of the Seattle PD CSI unit.
“Hi Rick,” said Farrow. “We got the call from Homicide to roll on this. Now that I’ve been in the apartment, I can see it’s the ‘Portland Killer’ , or at least the same or similar MO, so it’s an FBI case. I guess we should wait for their crime scene people.”
“This is Special Agent Diane Swanson, lead on the JTF, and this is her partner, Luke Dibotsky.”
Everyone introduced themselves as they stood by the open apartment door.
“The Bureau Evidence Response Team Unit should be here in a few minutes,” said Swanson to Farrow. “Can you give us a rundown of what you saw?”
“Sure. No forced entry. The victim, Deidre Matthews, is on her back, naked, with her wrists tied with rope looped around the headboard. I didn’t exam the body, but just backed out when I realized it was probably the Fed’s case. I did notice the bowline and bight on one wrist and there was a bottle of rum and a bottle of mouthwash on the bedside table.”
“Thanks Sarge,” said Diane. “Who discovered this?”
“The building manager, Sheila Watson. “She says that Matthews had asked someone to come up this afternoon and fix a leaking faucet, but when they couldn’t roust her by phone or knocking on the door, she and the maintenance man entered the apartment with the manager’s key. Ms. Watson said that Matthews had told her she was staying home from work today as she had a bad cold. Watson, who is back in her office on the main floor now, says she has next of kin information, etcetera.”
“OK. We’ll look after it from here,” replied Swanson as she looked down the hall and saw the FBI crime scene agents walking towards them.
“Do you know Derek Lucan and Tanis Foster from our ERTU?” asked Swanson.
“Sure do; we’re old friends,” replied Farrow. “Eric, Tanis, how are you doing?”
“I’ll let you people put your heads together on this,” said Swanson. “Rick, Rita, Luke, start canvassing the apartments and then adjacent residences and businesses. I’ll visit the manager for the next of kin info and get the video from their d
oorway camera or cameras.”
SA Diane Swanson phoned Sean and gave him an update on the latest homicide. The modus operandi was identical to the other three killings. No sign of how the perpetrator got into the building or into the apartment. The other three JTF members were still canvassing the apartments, but so far, no one saw or heard anything.
“I was just going over all the parking tickets that had been issued by the Seattle Police within a three block radius of the apartment blocks where each of the killings took place but no good suspects,” said Sean. “There were seven with petty crime records, but five were females with shoplifting and petty theft convictions and two males with minor drug convictions, both of whom had solid alibis.”