Opening Moves pbf-6

by Steven James

As I was hanging up, I saw the receptionist directing someone toward my desk.

  I recognized him immediately from the grad office brochure about the current lecture series.

  Dr. Calvin Werjonic.

  The visiting professor had decided not to wait for my call but had come to see me in person.

  55

  Tall. Slim. Distinguished. Dressed in a conservative dun-colored suit, he carried a tan London Fog trench coat draped over one arm and greeted me with a genteel smile and an outstretched hand. “Calvin Werjonic. And you must be Detective Bowers.” His English accent was rich and sonorous. His eyes, studious and precise, taking everything in.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  After a firm handshake, he gestured toward the papers on my desk. “I admit my handwriting isn’t…well, I’d say what it used to be, but it’s always been rather…tried.” He pulled out an actual, real-life pocket watch and checked the time. “Well, shall we chat here, or is there a better place to discuss your case?”

  “Um, honestly, I’m thrilled you would offer to help, but-”

  He flagged a finger in the air to stop me. “Most assuredly, I don’t expect you to tell me anything about the case that’s not already public knowledge. Taking that into account, I’ll offer what help I can. And you have no obligation to accept any of my observations or implement anything I might suggest. So, then, here? Or is there another, more suitable place?”

  “Let’s step into the conference room.”

  His eyes were on the maps on which I’d stuck the thumbtacks for the scenes of the crimes. “Interesting…” he mumbled. “And can we take this with us?”

  “Sure.”

  I wheeled the board with the maps as I led Dr. Werjonic to the room with the empty Daily Donuts box on the table. “Doughnuts,” he mused when we arrived. “Isn’t that a bit of a cliche? Here in America?”

  “Actually,” I said, defending my country, albeit lamely, “they were cherry turnovers.”

  “I see.”

  “Officer Thompson’s favorite.”

  “Of course.”

  Not really sure if that helped.

  He took a seat. “Well then, let’s get started.”

  “Just so we’re clear, you’re offering to help me with the case I’m currently working on, and-”

  “To be sure: the one involving the mutilation of Colleen Hayes, the abduction of Adele Westin, and the murder of Bruce Hendrich. And possibly the connection to two homicides in two other states.”

  I blinked. “How did you…?”

  “Come, come. The soil samples from the murder in Champaign that matched only two counties of southeast Wisconsin-there was a report on the news. That, and the anthropophagic behavior.”

  “That wasn’t made public.”

  “True.” He smiled. “But thank you for confirming it.”

  Okay, now that was just plain sneaky. “But how did you know last night that I was the one on this case anyway? That information wasn’t released until the newspapers came out this morning.”

  “Based on your grades and your request for the photocopied notes-which, I must say, is quite admirable-I can tell this program is a priority for you. The graduate assistant who requested I leave the notes for you mentioned the request came via a dispatcher, so I realized you were calling it in from the field. After a quick review of your attendance records, I noted that there has been a high correlation between your absences and high-profile homicide investigations in the city over the last six months.”

  “You teach in Vancouver. How do you possibly know about our homicide investigations here in Milwaukee?”

  “I stay current.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. “So”-I tracked with his train of thought-“from there it was simple enough to infer my involvement in this current case, the most high-profile one in months.”

  He smiled. “Timing and location, Detective. It always cracks down to timing and location.”

  “Alright, so just to reiterate: I can’t divulge anything confidential about the case. It’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “How about if I just tell you what I can, based on what I already know. From television, the newspapers, that sort of thing. Start there. See if that helps at all.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He steepled his fingers. “The Dahmer and Gein locations relate to the story he’s telling more than to the travel routes he’s taking. For instance, we don’t know that he himself has ever visited the New Territories Bar or the alley in Milwaukee, or the graveyard or the hardware store in Plainfield for that matter. Remember, he sent other people to those sites.”

  “True. Good point.”

  He gestured toward the map. “Which does not help us in our efforts to use geographic profiling to discern the most likely location of the kidnapper’s anchor point, but that’s not really the issue anymore, is it? Since we already know where it is.”

  “We do?”

  “The boxcar.” He stood and, with his finger, he traced, on the map, one after the other, the roads that branched out from the train yard’s parking lot. “The location of the train yards determined his travel routes more than his home address did, which will not help us in finding his home. He knows these neighborhoods. He was familiar enough with the woods to flee through them in nearly dark conditions, and then to make it through the neighborhood-yet being a Caucasian, he would likely be highly noticeable to the people living along those streets.”

  “We were thinking the same thing.”

  “Yes. The news accounts last night implied as much. Which reminds me, you’ve forgotten one key location.”

  “Which one is that?”

  “The parking lot in Pewaukee from which the Ford Taurus was stolen.”

  I was embarrassed I’d missed that. “I’ll add it.”

  “So, knowing the anchor point-the boxcar-I would suggest you begin to analyze the possible travel routes to and from the train yard to the other sites you’ve already noted.”

  At least that thought had already crossed my mind. “The algorithms in your notes.”

  “The last three pages, yes. And you’ll want to closely examine the victimology here. Find out how the two couples targeted in these crimes are connected to each other.”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Of course.”

  Time to pick his brain. “I’ve been thinking, Dr. Werjonic-”

  “Calvin, please.”

  “Calvin-I’ve been thinking…The guy who killed the women in Ohio and Illinois passed by Indiana.” I shared one little piece of information that wasn’t exactly public knowledge yet, but I kept it vague enough to feel comfortable telling him. “Of the other missing persons cases in Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana we’re looking at-”

  “Let me guess-you don’t have any in Indiana that fit the MO or victim demographic from those cases or the two out-of-state victims.”

  “Correct. I’m wondering why he would skip that geographic region.”

  “That, my boy, is a very good question.” He stared into space for a moment, then consulted his pocket watch again. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I must be going. I have a lunch appointment and a short drive ahead of me. It seems a writer is working on a book and wanted to interview me while I was in town. Investigating some cold cases, as it were.”

  I thought back to my conversation with Thorne yesterday afternoon when he mentioned that a true crime writer used Griffin as one of her sources. He’d brought her up again at our briefing a few minutes ago. “It’s not a true crime book, is it?”

  “It is.”

  “The writer’s name wouldn’t, by any chance, be Heather Isle?”

  “No, a gent named Slate Seagirt…” Calvin nodded, then smiled faintly. “Ah. Clever. A nom de plume.”

  A pseudonym…?

  I processed that aloud: “Both ‘heather’ and ‘slate’ can mean gray…An ‘isle’ is an island…” I hadn’t heard the word “seagirt” b
efore, but its meaning was easy enough to decipher: “Seagirt-girted by the sea.”

  “Yes.” Calvin looked pleased that I’d ventured a cursory guess at the word’s etymology. “Surrounded by water.”

  “What’s the cold case about?”

  “Something concerning the tragic unsolved murder of a young girl whose body was found in a tree house.”

  56

  I stared at him. “Mindy Wells?”

  “I wasn’t told her name. Are you familiar with the case?”

  I wondered if I should tell him what happened to Mindy back when I was in high school, and after a brief deliberation I decided it would be fine as long as I stuck to the facts in the public record.

  When I was done, he carefully deliberated on what I’d said. “Perhaps what intrigues me the most is not that this chap contacted me but that he contacted me now. With your connection to the case, it’s too convenient. I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “As a matter of fact, neither do I.”

  “A man after my own heart.” His voice was softer now; he was deep in thought.

  Someone knuckle-rapped on the door, then pressed it open before I could invite him in. It was Radar and he looked anxious. Obviously he had something he wanted to share because he jumped right in: “Pat, we might have some-” Only then did he notice Calvin. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

  “No, no. It’s quite alright.” Calvin stood. “I was just on my way out.” He extended his hand to me. “I look forward to speaking with you again soon, Detective. So I can share with you a description of this gray island.”

  “Call me.” We shook hands again. “As soon as your meal is over.”

  “Yes, of course.” He drew on his overcoat, then doffed an imaginary cap to Radar before exiting, but only after letting his eyes linger one more time on the maps on the corkboard.

  “Who was that?” Radar asked.

  “That was Dr. Calvin Werjonic.”

  “The guy you mentioned at the briefing?”

  “Yes.”

  For a moment Radar seemed distracted, then caught himself, returned abruptly to the conversation: “Sorry, as I was saying, we might have something.”

  “What is it?”

  “The receipts. We found a discrepancy.”

  Oh yeah, I liked discrepancies. Discrepancies are always a good thing.

  “What discrepancy?

  “Well, it might be just an accounting error, but-”

  “What discrepancy?”

  “It seems there was one item that, well…” He said nothing more, just handed me a receipt. Ralph, who’d been walking past the open door, saw us and joined us in the conference room.

  “It seems there was one item that what?” I asked Radar.

  “There was one item that Griffin sold that he didn’t buy.”

  57

  A chill.

  I gazed unbelievingly at the receipt.

  The item Griffin had sold but didn’t buy was a book of nursery rhymes with one specific page missing.

  Oh.

  No.

  I snatched my things off my desk. “Ralph, we’re going to need another search warrant. There’s more in Griffin’s house.”

  “How do you know?”

  “‘Hush, little baby, don’t say a word.’ The nursery rhyme. There was a copy of the song under Jenna’s pillow-she’s the seven-year-old we found dead three years ago. She’d been raped, then buried alive in a shallow grave. The song had been ripped out of a book. We identified which nursery rhyme book it was from but we never found the book itself.” I slapped the receipt down on the table. “Griffin sold it. But he never bought it.”

  I expected an expletive but got only shocked silence instead.

  “I’m going to Fort Atkinson.” I pulled out my car keys. “Have the local authorities get to his house now and hold him on something, I don’t care what, and get me a search warrant for the rest of the house by the time I get up there. Fax it to the Fort Atkinson Police Department.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m coming with you, Pat,” Radar said.

  “We’ll take my car.”

  We hurried to the parking garage, my thoughts running through everything once again, tying threads together into one dark, terrible fabric.

  You matched the semen found at the scene of Jenna’s murder to that found on Mindy Wells’s body. Dr. Werjonic is meeting the true crime author, the guy who’s writing a book about her…

  I recalled the items in Griffin and Mallory’s bedroom that weren’t for sale.

  A handheld mirror on Mallory’s dresser. A nice mirror. Ornate.

  A diamond ring in her jewelry box.

  A stuffed dog on the bed.

  There’s more. Something else…

  In my head, I ran through the complete lyrics to the song:

  Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

  And if that mockingbird don’t sing,

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

  And if that diamond ring turns brass,

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a looking glass.

  And if that looking glass gets broke,

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a billy goat.

  And if that billy goat don’t pull,

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a cart and bull.

  And if that cart and bull turn over,

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a dog named Rover.

  And if that dog named Rover won’t bark.

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a horse and cart.

  And if that horse and cart fall down,

  Well, you’ll still be the sweetest little baby in town.

  We had the diamond ring, the looking glass (the mirror), and, if I was right about the stuffed dog, we had “the dog named Rover.”

  What else?

  Oh. Yes.

  There’d been a ceramic bird resting next to the Manson Bible in the living room. No price tag on it. I’m no expert on birds, but I had a distinct feeling I knew what kind of bird that was.

  A mockingbird.

  Which meant that if Griffin really was collecting the items from the song, we needed a billy goat, a cart and bull, a horse and cart. I doubted that he would have live animals sequestered somewhere, but if that dog really did signify “the dog named Rover,” then it was likely he had other ways of representing the other animals too-perhaps more stuffed animals, toys, or maybe photographs or pictures of some type. Who knows.

  Daddy’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

  A looking glass.

  A mockingbird.

  I wondered what the items represented to him.

  Victims? Could each relate to another victim?

  Hush, little baby…

  He’d called Mallory “baby” twice while we were at the house. A harmless term of endearment, yes, unless it meant something a lot deeper to him.

  Radar and I jumped into my car and took off.

  58

  As I drove, Radar read me the file that Ralph had put together last night on Griffin.

  “Okay, so Timothy went to high school in Deerfield, dropped out when he was a sophomore, eventually got his GED and worked for a decade in a series of odd jobs in Milwaukee-three years delivering garbage, McDonald’s burger flipper, construction. Then a plumber’s apprentice in Beaver Dam. Looks like none of them was a good fit for him. Attended one year of tech school, dropped out. Evidently, he started collecting and selling this paraphernalia soon after that.”

  “Beaver Dam’s just twelve miles from Horicon. He could easily have known the area.” I remembered the coats in his closet. “He’s a hunter.”

  “The tree house. Goose hunting?”

  “Possibly.”

  Radar was quiet.

  “Never anything to do with law enforcement, though?” I asked. “Did he enter and drop out of any police academies?”

  “Nothing’s listed. Nope.”

  “Man, we gotta find out how he’s
trafficking stuff that ought to be in police evidence rooms.”

  “No kidding.”

  “What else?”

  “He’s lived in Fort Atkinson since June 1996. Mallory moved in with him about a month later on the day she turned eighteen.”

  “Which means-”

  “He had a relationship with her before that, when she was still a minor.”

  I felt my hands tighten around the steering wheel. “How do we know when she moved in?”

  “She changed the address on her driver’s license.”

  After Radar finished reading the files, we were silent and I was thinking about the case of Jenna Natara, the investigation that wouldn’t leave me alone, even when I slept.

  “Pat, I know you’re angry.”

  “Don’t tell me not to be, don’t-”

  “No, I get it. It’s okay. It’s a good thing.”

  “It’s good that I’m angry?”

  “It shows you care. As my dad used to say, anger is the cousin of love.”

  I looked at him quizzically. “What does that mean?”

  “The more you love something, the more angry you’ll be when that thing is threatened or attacked. If you love children, you’ll be incensed at pedophiles; if you love your wife, you’ll get angry when someone insults her; if you love endangered species, you’ll be furious when they’re hunted to the point of extinction; if you love unborn children, you’ll be outraged about abortion. Anger always, and only, runs as deep as love.”

  I’d never thought of it like that. “Your dad was a smart man.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  A thought: To find out what you truly love the most, look for what makes you the most angry.

  Anger is the cousin of love…

  I said, “You know how psychologists will tell you that no one can make you angry, that you only choose to become angry?”

  “Sure.”

  “I can’t remember a time ever in my life when I’ve chosen to be angry. And I’ve never met anyone who’s said to me, ‘This guy cut me off on the interstate and I decided to get angry.’”

  “Anger’s a response”-Radar was right with me-“not a choice.”

  “Right. Nobody ever chooses to become angry, we can only choose not to respond with anger. If we want to.”