by Mary Stone
Biting back the twinge of rage, Winter forced herself to maintain an amiable visage.
“He went by Jim,” Alice said after their server had dropped off their drinks and taken their orders. “Jim the brute, that’s what some of the girls called him.”
“You guys knew about him, then?” Levi asked.
“Yeah.” Alice paused to sip at her soda. “Big guy, burly, bearded, the whole thing. I only ever ran into him once, and I was lucky that one of the more experienced girls was there with me. He always offered a whole lot of cash, but Toni said that’s how he tricked them. They’d see that wad of twenties and get tunnel vision.”
“Tricked them?” Levi echoed. “What did he do to them?”
With a shaky sigh, Alice took another drink. “Beat them up. Cut them.”
“Raped them?” Winter asked when the girl paused.
Alice looked confused. “Isn’t that what we’re paid for?”
Compassion made Winter’s sinuses burn. “No, honey. There’s a difference.”
Alice just shrugged. “Anyway, it all depended on what kind of mood he was in, I guess. Some of the girls said he didn’t do anything like that to them, but they still said he gave them the creeps.”
“Why didn’t you go to the cops?” Winter blurted out the question and immediately wished she could take it back. “I’m sorry,” she said before Levi or Alice could speak. “I didn’t mean it like that, didn’t mean to sound like I was accusing you of anything. I’m not. Promise. I guess I just want to know a little more about everything, if you don’t mind.”
“There are some cops that come around,” Alice said. “A couple women and a guy. They’re good people. They’ll drop off food and blankets when it’s cold, and they’ll ask around to see if anyone’s been bothering us. They do their best, you know. But they can’t be everywhere, and there’s only so much that three Richmond police officers can do.”
Levi unlocked the screen of his phone and slid the device across the table for Alice to see. “Do you recognize her?”
Pursing her lips, Alice shifted her blue eyes from the picture of Alicia Perez and back up to Levi before she shook her head. “No.”
With a finger, Levi swiped to the next photo—a high school picture of Melody Harrison. “How about her?”
Alice stiffened in her side of the booth. “That’s Mel,” she breathed. “She…she went missing a while back. The cops, the ones who come around to help us out sometimes, they couldn’t find anything out about where she went. They filed a missing person’s report for her, but eventually, we stopped asking them for updates.”
“Is she the first girl to go missing?” Levi pressed a button on the side of his phone, and the screen went dark.
“No.” Alice still looked shocked. “Girls come and go a lot. They’ll move to different parts of town, or they’ll just leave the life altogether. That doesn’t happen very often, though, and when it does, they usually come back. But, I don’t know how to explain it, but it was just different with Melody. Usually, you can tell when someone’s about to pack up and hit the road, you know?”
“What about the last time you saw her?” Winter asked.
Alice stared at the wall to Winter’s back, clearly searching her memory banks. “Mel just acted like she always did, like I’d be seeing her the next day or something. And when she was gone, she was just gone. None of her stuff was gone, it was just her. I mean, for shit’s sake, she was only seventeen, you know. We never want to see girls like that out there, but when we do, we do what we can to help them.”
“We?” Levi asked, sliding a glance to Winter. “Meaning you and the other women who’ve been out there for a while?”
“Yeah, exactly. We tell them what we know, who to avoid, what types of places are more dangerous, stuff like that.”
“Was James Bauman part of that? Part of what you warned other girls about?”
The shadows shifted along her throat as she swallowed. “Yeah. He was.”
For the rest of their time at the diner, Winter and Levi tried to shift the discussion to a more lighthearted topic. Alice had taken a few classes at a community college when she was younger, and she had planned to transfer to VCU to study psychology.
Winter tried to offer encouragement, tried to lift Alice’s spirits and point her in a direction that would lead away from the dangerous line of work into which she’d fallen.
But regardless of Alice’s smiles and nods, Winter knew the effort was futile. There was more at play in Alice’s background than just financial trouble, and a few feel-good words from an FBI agent wouldn’t be enough to make that turbulence disappear.
As promised, Winter and Levi bought Alice a bus ticket to take her back to the area where she and the other girls worked and lived. Winter gave her a business card, along with the usual spiel to either call or email if she remembered any other details that might help their investigation.
As they waved goodbye to the young woman, Winter wasn’t hopeful.
Her heart ached for Alice and all the other young women and girls like her, but more than that, her heart ached because she knew she couldn’t help them.
She hadn’t expected the sudden dejected feeling, but as she plodded toward the black sedan, she wanted nothing more than to go home and pour herself a stiff drink.
Winter had taken on the task of driving them back to the office, and she had half a mind to drive them to a bar instead. As she pulled to a stop at a red light, she spotted a flicker of movement at her side.
The red glow flashed on the screen of Levi’s smartphone as he raised the device to his ear. “Agent Brandt.”
A tinny voice replied to the curt greeting, but Winter couldn’t make out their words.
“Yeah, that’s her,” he said.
The caller rattled off another response, and Levi’s eyes widened. “You what?” he snapped. “You’ve got to be kidding me! She’s a federal witness, detective! And you booked her? What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Whoa,” Winter mouthed. She didn’t envy the person on the other end of the line.
“I’ll be there in ten. Why don’t you use that time to pull your head out of your ass!”
She half-expected Levi to toss the phone out the open window, but he clenched his teeth and swiped a thumb across the screen instead.
“Where are we going?”
“Downtown,” Levi grated. “The Richmond PD just arrested the only witness who’s ever seen our killer’s face and lived.”
As it turned out, Levi and the detective who booked Gina Traeger had a history of disagreements.
Detective Olson was the polar opposite of Levi Brandt: the man was short, rotund, and bald. Though Olson wore a navy-blue suit and tie, he might as well have been dressed in a tracksuit when he stood beside Levi.
Agent Brandt might not have been as perpetually well-dressed as Aiden Parrish, but the man had a sharp sense of style.
Winter stood on the sidelines as Levi pointedly explained to the precinct captain the reason for the bureau’s interest in Gina.
“What did you guys even pop her for?” Though calm, Levi’s tone was laden with condescension. “Prostitution? A little bit of weed?”
The middle-aged man behind the polished wooden desk clenched his jaw, but he didn’t respond.
“Do you know what she witnessed, Captain?” Agent Brandt hissed.
“My detectives didn’t know she was a federal witness until after they booked her. We’ll release her to your custody, and we’re sorry for the misunderstanding,” the captain replied.
“Didn’t know?” Levi sputtered, waving his hand at the notices tacked to the bulletin boards. He knew they’d also gone out to every computer, every phone. “Does your detective live in a hole? That would be the only way he didn’t know.”
The captain reddened and opened his mouth to speak.
“Oh, it’s too late for that.” Levi waved a dismissive hand and took a deep breath. “You think she’s going to say a da
mn thing to us now? She saw the man who shot Tyler Haldane, Captain. The serial killer who’s been all over the local news lately, that’s who she saw. And if you think she’s going to cooperate with us now that you hauled her in here and charged her, then I’d like to know what planet you live on.”
The older man grumbled out another apology before he escorted them to the interrogation room with Gina Traeger. He advised them where they could find the necessary paperwork to take with them back to the bureau to have her transferred to their custody once she could be officially released, and then he bade them a stiff farewell.
“So, wait,” Winter said before Levi could reach for the doorknob. “We can’t even take her back to the office?”
“Nope,” Levi grated. “We might have jurisdiction in this case, but we can’t release someone after the local cops have charged them for a crime. The cops or the DA have to drop the charges, and that takes hours at best. Our hands are tied.”
“Wow,” Winter sighed. “What a day.”
“That’s no kidding,” he muttered. “I doubt we’ll get much from her, but we ought to at least give it a shot before they throw her in holding for the rest of the night.”
Winter nodded her understanding. The heavy door creaked as Levi pulled it open, and the woman seated at the rickety table took in a sharp breath at the sudden disturbance.
“Sorry,” Levi said, “we didn’t mean to scare you. You’re Gina Traeger, right?”
As the door latched closed, Winter and Levi pulled out a couple of metal chairs to sit across from the redhead.
“Who the hell are you?” Her eyes darted back and forth between Winter and Levi.
“We’re with the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Winter replied. For what felt like the hundredth time that day, she flashed her badge. “I’m Special Agent Black, and this is Special Agent Brandt. We’re just here to ask you a few questions.”
“You’re not in any trouble with the FBI,” Levi added. “But we’re following up something.” He paused to slide a picture of James Bauman over to Gina.
Narrowing her eyes at the picture and then at them, she pursed her lips. “What do you want?”
“Do you know this man?” Winter asked.
Though the gesture was stiff, Gina nodded. “I’ve seen him. Why? What’d he do?”
“He’s dead.” Levi’s voice was flat. “We know you didn’t kill him.”
There was a touch of cautious relief on Gina’s face, but she made no move to speak.
“We want to hear what happened when you went with him to the Greendale Motel,” Levi said. “And we know you were there, Gina. We have you on camera. We know you walked into room eight for about thirty seconds, and then you ran back out.”
“Yeah,” Gina returned, crossing her arms as she leaned back in her chair. “The guy was a creep. Soon as we got in that room, he said some weird shit about how he wanted to cut me, so I got the hell out of there. He was alive when I left.”
“Who was the other man in the room with you and James Bauman?” Winter pressed. She propped her elbows atop the metal table and leaned forward. “We know there was someone else there. He’s on camera too.”
Gina’s expression was blank as she shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Ms. Traeger…” The warning was clear in Levi’s voice.
“Just Gina,” she shot back.
“Gina,” he corrected. “The man you saw, whoever was in that room with you. He killed James Bauman. And we’ve got reason to believe he’s killed other people too.”
“What, you mean like some kind of serial killer or something?” she huffed.
“Exactly like that. He’s killed three other people that we know of,” Winter replied.
Levi nodded. “Which makes him a serial killer.”
The seconds felt like they stretched into minutes as Winter watched Gina’s facial expression. Though Gina was only a little over eighteen, her arrest tonight was far from her first brush with the law. But even more than that, she had dealt with her abusive father for close to six years before she finally ran away from home. To someone who had been through a hell Winter couldn’t even imagine, the sight of two federal agents must have seemed like a cake walk.
Levi had been right in his admonishment of the precinct captain. The arrest had shaken her, but not in a way that was conducive to a cooperative witness. Instead, her brush with the Richmond PD had the opposite effect.
If Winter and Levi had reached Gina before she was slapped with a pair of cuffs and read her Miranda rights, they could have made a deal with her. The US Attorney would have been more than happy to provide witness protection or any other means of security for an eyewitness to provide a description of the man who had killed James Bauman and three other people.
But now, even if they obtained a meeting with Gina and the US Attorney, Winter doubted the girl would cooperate. If there was anything Winter had learned today, it was that the balance between law enforcement and the groups of people who survived on the periphery of society—people like Gina Traeger and Alice—was precarious at best. One wrong move and that relationship could be shattered like a piece of cheap glass.
“I didn’t see anyone,” Gina said, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was drunk, so maybe I’m remembering it wrong. Either way, I hate to break it to you, agents. But I didn’t see a damn thing.”
30
Aiden crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Bree Stafford tape a new photograph to the whiteboard.
Over the last two weeks, they had added four more pictures. There had been a break of a few days between James Bauman’s murder and the next victim, but after that, the deaths of the other three had occurred every other day.
Tom Cotman, the newest addition to the whiteboard, had been killed last night. If the current pattern held, tonight would be quiet.
Each of the four subsequent victims—if that was what they could even be called—had shared the same traits as the first four. They were wolves hidden in sheep’s clothing.
Under the guise of an electrician, a customer service manager, a long-haul truck driver, and even a sous chef, each man had painted a picture of normalcy. But when Aiden leaned in to scrutinize the picture, the image changed.
Though formal charges had never been pressed against any of the four, each had left a trail of victims in their wake.
Like James Bauman, two of the men had targeted prostitutes. One had been in Norfolk, and the other had been in Lynchburg. The other two relied more on opportunity than a set ritual, but they were predators just the same.
Extensive searches into the backgrounds of the four men’s victims had yielded a couple promising leads, but neither had panned out. They had run into one dead end right after another, and Aiden could only assume they would see more of the same as they delved into Tom Cotman’s case.
“Agent Brandt and Agent Ming are at the scene.” Bree’s announcement interrupted Aiden’s pessimistic speculation.
“Did he leave another notecard?” Winter asked, leaning back to sit atop the table closest to the whiteboard.
To her side, white light glinted off Noah Dalton’s eyes as he scrolled through his smartphone.
“He did,” Bree confirmed. “Same thing as the others. Names and dates, all typed, no prints. Standard index card with no special markings. Ever since the press found out a few days ago, they’ve been writing articles about how he’s ‘taunting’ the bureau. But, personally, I wouldn’t call this taunting. I’d call it something more like ‘being informative,’ or ‘leaving an explanation.’” She ended the statement with a shrug.
Aiden swept his gaze over the photographs of the notecards that were left with the bodies of the six most recent victims. “Every time he tells us what one of these guys did, he’s telling the press by proxy. He wants everyone to know why he’s doing what he’s doing.”
“They’re calling him The Norfolk Executioner,” Noah put in as he glanced up from his phone.
“And let me tell you, the comment sections for these articles are something else. The only other time I see people at each other’s throats like this anymore are in political debates. But these aren’t really political. I mean, there’s people from both sides who think the FBI ought to pin a medal to this dude’s chest when we find him, and then there’s people on both sides who think he ought to be locked up just like any other serial killer.”
Winter rubbed her face with both hands. “Might be the first time you get people from opposite sides of the political spectrum to agree on something.”
“With elections coming up, you’d better believe we’re going to hear about it from whoever’s running for whatever office.” Noah sighed and pocketed his phone. “Sooner we find this guy, the sooner we get the press off our backs. I’m getting sick of going to press briefings every other damn day.”
“Well,” Bree said, “when we finally do catch him, there’s going to be a pretty long line of people who want to shake his hand. Or her hand.”
“There’ll be more than a few federal agents in that line. Plus, the medical examiner,” Aiden advised. “If it weren’t for the press on our backs, I doubt the bureau would even allocate the funding to catch this person.”
Bree stepped away from the whiteboard to observe her handiwork. “You’re not kidding. He’s doing half of our job for us, and he’s saving the state of Virginia a lot in trial costs. How much do you suppose he’s saved us all in tax dollars, anyway? That’s eight cases that never have to go to trial. It’s got to be in the millions by now, right?”
“A killer’s still a killer.” Winter’s voice was as flat as her unimpressed stare. She was clearly tired of this same old argument.
“At least this one’s doing us a favor,” Aiden shot back.
“By making us look bad?” There was a glint of petulance in Winter’s blue eyes as she shifted her attention to him. “There are just as many people talking shit about the FBI and the cops as anything. He’s pointing out what these guys have done, and it makes law enforcement look like they don’t know what they’re doing. I mean, if one guy can figure out all these cases, then why the hell didn’t the cops?”