by Craig Smith
‘We have to call Max.’
Chapter 64
Friday 4:05 p.m., March 26.
THE MINUTE MAX Dunn found out what we had, he called the city and state police, then more reluctantly the local FBI special agent in charge. Emergency meeting.
Garrat brought Steve Massey, Linda Sutherlin, and me to the meeting, which was just down the hall from the prosecutor’s offices. Max had Rolly Tincher sit with him as well as his chief deputy and SWAT commander, Joe Roby. Roby was in his late forties, a lean, tough man with steel coloured hair that he kept cropped short. He had eyes that look fitted for gun sights.
His counterpart with the city was at the meeting as well. Cass McCreary was a tall honey-blonde woman nearly forty years old, though no one would guess it looking at her. McCreary had begun her career in Shiloh Springs sixteen years ago as a decoy. She could still pass on the streets for a kid selling it to keep body and soul together but these days she ran intelligence for the city and was a key player in the state’s task force on drugs. She also commanded the city’s SWAT team. If we had a save anywhere in Shiloh County, both Roby’s and McCreary’s teams would be involved.
Chief Cottrell made the meeting as well as his assistant chief of detectives Bobby DeWitt. By chance, the state police detective assisting the investigation wasn’t available. The post had sent Lt. Commander Jerry Powell in his place. I had served with Powell for a number of years. It was a comfort seeing him involved in this thing. Powell was a straight-shooter, blessed with that most rare of all qualities, good common sense.
The wild card in this brew was the FBI’s new agent-in-charge at Shiloh Springs.
Winston Fortney was not the intrusive Fed we had all feared. He was a corpulent man with a quick smile and a pleasant manner, the last fellow in the world you’d pick to be a cop, let alone FBI. He was more like a life insurance salesman with all the ragged edges trimmed and tucked.
I liked him at once, but I had to keep reminding myself that he had the power to turn Will Booker into a federal case, leaving us all off the dance card.
Our meeting convened at just after four o’clock that afternoon. Max Dunn apologized for the inconvenience of such a hurried meeting but said the information we had gathered was critical. ‘With any luck it just maybe helps us put the puzzle together.’ As the sheriff related to the others what Garrat and I had given him, the expectancy he had stirred in them turned to horror. ‘Son of a bitch!’ Roby hissed. ‘You’re saying he gets his victims to do the killing for him?’
‘It’s what he did last time,’ Garrat answered.
Agent Fortney nodded. ‘A variation of the Stockholm syndrome. The hostage begins to identify with the hostage-taker rather than the police. All sense of perspective is lost. Finally she thinks her salvation is linked to his.’
Frank Cottrell nodded and mentioned the Hearst case, explicating the thing as if none of us had ever heard of Patty Hearst.
‘There’s a difference here,’ I said. ‘In the classic scenario, the rage is turned out toward the police, the government, and the population in general. They’re not there to help, they’re the cause of the problem… that kind of thing. Will Booker turned Missy Worth against one girl. He made her the reason he couldn’t let the others go. Not so much siding with Booker as letting loose her own rage at her captivity. After the first murder he used Missy’s guilt to leverage the next kill. By the time it came to Mary, Missy was terrified of dying the way the others had. So she gave up her own sister on Booker’s promise that he would set her free.’
‘Something else we need to look at, too,’ Garrat told us. ‘It seems Will Booker was talking about the Book of Job the evening before he took off with the two girls.’ She described the devil’s wager with God, and then told them flatly, ‘According to Connie Merriweather, the first thing that happened was the devil killed all of Job’s children.’
Bobby DeWitt, our resident born-again, smiled at us all condescendingly. ‘It’s not the first thing that happens, Pat.’
‘I’m quoting Merriweather, Bobby.’
‘Well, he’s wrong.’
‘ Again,’ I said.
Linda Sutherlin smiled. I don’t think my humour registered with the others, because Max roared over my line, ‘Well, let’s see what happens first; somebody get a Bible!’
Somebody was Rolly Tincher. He waddled out of the sheriff’s conference room and called to someone in the sheriff’s main office that he needed a damn Bible. I saw Bobby DeWitt dip his chin and close his eyes. I expect he wanted to be spared the bolt of lightning God should have sent down on us.
Less than a minute later Rolly came back into the room. ‘Ain’t nobody’s got a Bible, Max. You want a patrol car to find one?’
‘I’ve got one in my office,’ DeWitt answered. ‘I’ll go get it. It’s a Gideon,’ he offered, as if we might refuse him on that count, then he almost blushed, ‘I stole it from a motel room before I found the Lord.’
‘Booker reads King James,’ I said.
‘King James Revised?’
Max shook his head like a man about to draw his weapon. ‘Just get the thing, Bobby!’
Cottrell nodded his permission and DeWitt took off.
While he was gone, Garrat outlined Merriweather’s theory of a test of faith, including the ruin that came to Job. Agent Fortney suggested it was possible the two scenarios were both in operation here. ‘One sister takes the other’s life; then Booker finishes it by killing the second one. Not much different from what he did with Missy Worth and the three girls.’
‘The past seven years,’ I said, ‘Will Booker has hardly had his nose out of that book.
I’ve read the experts: I know what they all say about signatures, but I think realistically there’s a good chance Booker is operating under a new set of rules these days.’
Powell nodded thoughtfully. ‘The old is passed away.’
frࡀIl‘Plus,’ I said, ‘the last time we had four victims locked up. With just the two girls the whole dynamic has to be different.’
‘Maybe he’s got a houseful and we just don’t know it,’ Roby answered.
‘There’s a happy thought!’ Max Dunn grumbled.
Chapter 65
Friday 4:23 p.m., March 26.
BOBBY DEWITT WAS WINDED from what was undoubtedly a hard run through the underground passage. ‘Got it!’ he called. He held a black book toward us cheerfully, then sat down and began flipping pages. ‘Here,’ he said after a moment. ‘ And there came a messenger unto Job, and said, The oxen were ploughing and the asses feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. ’
Max grimaced. ‘So we look for some dead cows and mules, is that it?’
DeWitt held us hand up, and read on. ‘ While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet speaking there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell.’ He looked up, ‘Then you have the children.’ He read it for us: ‘ Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother’s house, and Behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. ’
Max shook his head. ‘So basically, the preacher was right. It all happens at once. His kids gone on day-one. How was it again? A mighty wind?’
‘A collapsed building,’ DeWitt answered, then shrugged apologetically. ‘Sorry, I thought it might be important. I knew the kids didn’t die first. I remembered that much.’
‘Camels, sheep... and oxen...’ Cottrell intoned, as if trying to recall where one mi
ght find such animals in Shiloh Springs.
‘And servants,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget the servants.’ I looked at Linda Sutherlin, who had already given me a smile, ‘Nobody ever remembers the faithful servants.’
She gave me another, then crossed her legs, flashing her MOM, and of course I had to imagine reading it upside down. WOW.
‘Maybe we’d better take a look around the country for collapsed buildings,’ McCreary offered.
Rolly nodded, ‘I’ll put it out on the wire tonight.’
Cottrell took the Bible from his subordinate and studied it while we waited, then he looked up and offered for all of us, ‘...and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.’ He nodded at our dumb looks. ‘It’s Missy Worth.’
We all looked down at the table, none of us willing to tell the Shiloh Springs chief of police Mdiv h wa his chronology was screwy by about ten years.
‘According to Merriweather,’ I answered at last, ‘the story of Job is about faith. If you take everything away from a man, the question is, will he curse God or keep his faith. Now these two have been meeting for almost seven years. From our perspective, Merriweather has been this royal pain in the butt, but the two of them together have spent most of their time talking Bible, not law. The minute it finally looked like he might get out, this winter, Booker seemed to focus his attention on the Book of Job. Specifically he asked about Job’s perfection. He either wants to show Merriweather the truth about himself, that he’s not perfect, or he wants to find out for himself how much faith the old boy has. Either way, the girls don’t seem real important.
This is about Merriweather.’
‘So he stays close?’ Jerry Powell answered. ‘Because he wants to watch?’
‘A good chance of it,’ I answered.
‘If he stays in the area,’ Roby answered, ‘his problem is where to hide the car.’
‘That car is not on the streets anywhere in the county,’ Max Dunn answered. ‘I’ll wager my badge on it.’
‘He hides it in someone’s garage,’ I offered.
Rolly Tincher grumbled. ‘This guy gets out of prison and sits in his room at
Merriweather’s house for what... five-six days? One trip to the mall, where he goes to two stores for some clothes and then he goes home again; a trip to the public library, church on Sunday, and then the hospital. When does he get a chance to scout out a garage?’
‘It was three trips to the library, Rolly,’ I said.
‘Merriweather said he went to the library,’ Rolly Tincher answered with a heavy shrug of his shoulders. ‘That’s all I know.’
‘Rachel Merriweather told me it was Sunday afternoon, Monday evening, and Tuesday evening, the night he was attacked.’
We all grew quiet, all of us thinking the same thing. It was Max Dunn who finally voiced it.
‘So what in the hell do you figure was so interesting about the library?’
Chapter 66
Friday 4:24 p.m., March 26.
ROLLY TINCHER SHOOK HIS head. ‘No one we talked to at the library even saw the guy.
Course that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there; it just means no one saw him.’ A smile to let us know we were off on a wild goose chase.
‘It’s possible,’ I said, ‘that Booker didn’t even go inside. He could have spent the time looking for his hideout.’
‘And he didn’t have a car...’ Max turned on Rolly suddenly. ‘He didn’t drive, did he?’
‘Didn’t have a valid driver’s license.’
‘He got his rides from the preacher or Tammy Merriweather,’ I told them.
Rolly shot me a look, which I answered in fthv> ull. Max Dunn leaned back in his chair thinking about Booker. ‘So let’s start at the library,’ he said, ‘and then move out in four directions and start looking into garages. It’s a hell of a job but I mean it’s something!’
Jerry Powell leaned forward in surprise. ‘You mean go door-to-door?’
Max shook his head, ‘We’re only interested in finding some kind of garage or shed where he could keep the car. For that we can just go down the alleys taking a peek. You put thirty-or-forty plain-clothes people out after sundown, and I mean look in every damn garage window and you’re going to find that car if it’s there!’ He grew animated with a sudden thought. ‘You got the river on the west. One squad could handle everything in that direction. Public housing, no garages! Industry out there is all behind fences, not more than a couple dozen private garages in the whole area. Points north, you’ve got the university. Security and maintenance have already swept their garages and anywhere else you could hide a car. They even went through their tunnels looking for the kids. So we go on north of that maybe a mile or two at the most. And houses east and south, right up and down the alleys out to the suburbs!’
‘What about garages or buildings that are shut up?’ Cass McCreary responded. ‘If you can’t see into a building you’re going to have a problem.’
‘For the buildings we can’t see into we can bring a team in tomorrow morning and find out from the neighbours what going on! If we don’t like the answers, we’ll get nosey!’
‘The one thing you can’t do,’ Massey warned, ‘is you can’t pry doors open or break windows for a better look. I mean really you shouldn’t even be able to step on people’s property.’
‘We’re just having a look at what we can see from the alley – which is public access. It’s no different from grabbing garbage bags and checking them without a warrant. We’re not going on private property!’
Cass McCreary said, ‘Maybe we should look at bus lines, too. If he didn’t want to walk, busses are cheap and easy, and the drivers know their regulars, so they might notice a new face.’
Max gave Rolly Tincher a look. ‘Might as well look at taxi drivers too. Anybody gave this guy a ride last week, it would be nice to know it.’
‘If you don’t mind,’ I said, ‘I’ll take another look inside the library.’
Rolly grinned. ‘You’re wasting your time, Rick.’
‘Did you talk to everyone?’
‘We talked to enough of them.’
‘It’s just possible he met someone there. It’s the only time we have him without one of the Merriweathers escorting him. I just want to be sure.’
Winston Fortney opened his hands. ‘You could say the same for the hospital.’
‘We checked it,’ Tincher answered.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning we talked to the nurses, interviewed the old guy he was rooming with, went down the hall, asked folks if they’d had any contact with the guy. We checked!’
v hPowell scratched a note to himself. ‘I can get three, maybe four state police detectives on the hospital tonight. Look at personnel: see if anyone’s missing for the last few days, then look at patients. Find out if someone has an empty house because they’re staying in the hospital, ask if maybe there’s a family that hasn’t been by to visit a patient since Wednesday night.’ He looked at Rolly. ‘Just to be sure.’
‘What about the church?’ Massey asked.
Tincher answered with real defensiveness on this one. ‘The church we’ve looked at hard.
The guy shook hands with folks. Period.’
‘Anyone missing?’ Garrat asked.
Tincher shook his head. ‘Everyone’s accounted for. First thing we did was to get their prayer line up and going, called everyone and his sainted brother.’
Max looked around the table, his eyes settling on agent Fortney. ‘You hang with us a few more days on the phones, keep the house covered in case he comes back?’
‘As long as you need us.’
He looked at me. ‘You need a hand with the librarians, Rick? I know those sorts can get pretty wild sometimes…’
‘I’ll call for backup, if I do.’
Max put both hands on the table: ‘Well then folks... there’s nothing left to do but lose some more sleep!’
Chapter 67
Friday 4:45 p.m., March 26.
IN THE HALL BEYOND the sheriff’s office, our meeting finished, Garrat and Massey walked together, while Linda Sutherlin and I trailed several feet behind. Massey was talking excitedly, something about prosecuting Missy Worth.
When we hit the office, I asked Garrat if she had a minute. As Sutherlin and Massey went on, I heard Massey suggest dinner. Sutherlin answered him without rancour. ‘I’d rather attend my own crucifixion.’
Massey handled the rejection with his usual aplomb. ‘Another time, maybe.’