by Sara Gauldin
“So, we put a bolo out on the guy, and pay his company a visit,” Agent Brooks said.
Kirk looked up from his screen. “I think I know where he’s staying. I have a trace on this email. It looks like someone sent it from an IP belonging to the public Wi-Fi at the Plaza hotel.”
“I’m headed there now,” I said.
“Not on your own, you aren’t.” Commander Jennings looked over the top of his glasses at me. He was an imposing figure when he wanted to be.
I chewed my lip for a moment, considering my options. “Fine, then assign someone to accompany me.” It was crazy. Anyone who went with me could be in danger. There was too much I couldn’t anticipate.
He scowled. “I have every officer out searching for Genevieve.”
“I’ll go with you. The safety of one of our agents is on the line.” Agent Brooks straightened his tie.
I hoped he was more than just a conceptual officer. If things went sideways, I needed more than a plan.
Chapter 27
I climbed into the sleek black cruiser with Agent Brooks. “Thank you again for being willing to take me.”
“Hey, if there’s a chance we can catch Justin Jansworth in the act, we have to take it.”
I nodded. “I have a bad feeling about this, for Genevieve.”
“For good reason, the other victims went through a lot. But we know that the killer took their time with them. There must have been a reason for the torture, they had something that the killer wanted, or there was some twisted association with the ritual.”
I swallowed hard, trying not to think of Dana’s mangled corpse. “It’s hard to say what someone would get out of something like that.”
Brooks never took his eyes off the road. “It’s some twisted perception of a genuine need they are trying to meet. There is always a motivation, but the logic behind something like this is coming from a place of mental illness, not from something more grounded and understandable.”
“So, they’re crazy, and they carve up their victims like a totem pole before freezing and dismembering them. If one kidnapper had all of this ‘figured out,’ then why is the other one even involved?” I asked.
“Well, that one is easier. The other person has either bought into the delusion or is working out of fear or loyalty to the actual killer. I’d be willing to bet they aren’t involved in the ritual part, just in the pickup and drop off.”
“Oh, they sound like a fun bunch.” I clutched the handle over the door a little tighter as we went around a corner.
“That’s putting it mildly.”
I shook my head. “I’m still trying to work out how Jon Li could work in that building and not realize he was being neighborly with a serial killer.”
“I put in a call to my CO before we headed out. I want to know who this Jon Li guy is. You said he showed up at the hospital and apologized to you before disappearing, but something in that doesn’t add up. Why would he give up his cover, after giving the locals the slip?”
“That’s a good question. I would have wondered about it myself if I realized that he gave a false ID when they arrested him. Heck, he even said he would come in and give a statement about the cyber-crimes he was investigating, but he was in no hurry to show up at the police station to recant his identity.”
Brooks glanced at the address Kirk Nelson gave us. “This investigation blew his cover. If he goes back after leaving in a squad car, they’ll think he sang to get out of jail.”
We pulled into the hotel parking area. An over-eager bellhop came to the driver’s side door with a painted-on grin. Brooks rolled down the window. “I’d be glad to help you with your bags.”
Brooks smiled. “No thank you. We won’t be staying. We just need to meet with your manager.” He produced his badge from inside the lapel of his blazer.
The smile faded from his face. “Oh, I see. Right this way, please.” We let the bellhop show us the way through the hotel lobby and to the front desk. “I’ll go get her.”
We waited at the desk, watching the receptionist pretend we weren’t there as he typed with too much enthusiasm at the keyboard.
A gaunt blonde woman wearing heavy glasses and too much makeup emerged from a door behind the counter. “You asked to see the manager? I’m the general manager, Bren Clancy.”
Brooks produced his badge and made our introductions.
“I’m sorry, Officer, is there a problem?” Her voice had raised a full octave.
“Actually, it’s agent,” Brooks smiled. “Well, is there somewhere we could speak in private? This is a sensitive matter.” He looked over his shoulder at a family of hotel guests who were passing through the lobby.
“Oh, all right. I guess we can talk in my office. I’ll meet you at the doorway, there.” She pointed to a door near the end of the counter.
“Thank you for being so accommodating.” Brooks smiled.
Bren Clancy gave an awkward smile before making her way back through the door behind the front counter. As she turned, I noticed that her bun hairdo was pinned on. Her actual hair was much shorter.
The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. “Does she look familiar to you?”
“Should she?” Brooks asked.
“She looks an awful lot like the woman in the video with Genevieve Richards.” I tried the handle of the door where Bren Clancy had agreed to meet us. It was locked. I realized that there was a scan pad for a key fob next to the latch.
“She’s running, call for backup.” Brooks ran toward the counter and launched himself up and over with a smooth, fluid practiced move. All doubts I had about Brooks being able to handle himself in the field were erased, as he pulled his weapon and sprinted out of sight through the door and into the hallway behind.
Following directions, I took out my phone and called 911.
“Open the door, now!” I ordered the desk clerk. He looked at me with his mouth hanging open and put his hands up. “The door!” My words registered, and he pushed a button under the counter that unlatched the door.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
“This is Avery Rich.” I looked down the hallway for any hint of where Brooks or Bren had gone. There was no sign of either. I ran down the hall. “I need the police at the Plaza Hotel. I’m here with Agent Brooks, of the FBI, he is requesting backup. We are in pursuit of Bren Clancy, the hotel manager. She is a suspect in kidnapping and murder.”
I could hear the operator typing something in. “Ma’am. Stay calm. You should try to put yourself somewhere safe. Is there a door you can lock?”
“No, I need backup. This is an emergency.” I hung up. The call wasn’t getting me the results I needed. As I reached the end of the hall, I paused and listened. There was nothing. I opened the door leading to the stairwell and listened again. There was nothing. I went into the stairwell area and realized there was an exit to the parking lot there. I ran to the door just in time to see Agent Brooks sprinting out of sight across the parking lot.
I grabbed my phone again as I tried to follow. This time I called Commander Jennings.
“Avery is everything okay,” Jennings said as soon as he answered the phone.
“I’m headed west from the Plaza Hotel. Agent Brooks and I are pursuing one of our suspects on foot. We need back up and patrol to the hotel.”
“All right, dispatch has officers en route.”
“Thanks.” I hung up and dug in hard to speed up. Agent Brooks had outpaced me with his long legs, but I knew he hadn’t gone far. Our suspect was as petite as me, and she could not outrun Brooks for long. I made it just short of a block before I caught up to the two of them, but it wasn’t the situation I hoped to see. Bren had a gun, pointing it at Brooks. Brooks held his weapon, aimed at Bren.
“Put down the gun. This fixes nothing. You don’t want to do this.” Agent Brooks ordered. We were in trouble.
Bren stared at the gun in Agent Brooks’ hand. “I can’t, you know I can’t.”
I had to do
something. If she got herself killed, our best chance of finding Genevieve would go with her. I stepped into her line of sight. “Bren, right?”
She glanced in my direction for a fraction of a second.
“My name is Avery. Look, it doesn’t need to be like this.”
She shook her head.
I tried again. “Bren, talk to us. We have to talk about this.”
“Put the gun down.” Brooks aimed at her, waiting.
“Look, I can help you. You don’t have to go through this. Talk to us.”
She shook her head again. “I know you,” she said.
“Do you? Have we met?” I tried to keep my voice steady. A dead witness was useless.
“No, I know who you are.”
“Right, I’m Avery Rich. We can talk this out.”
“Can we? There are things we can’t talk about.” I saw the tremble in her hand. I knew she would do something stupid. It was coming, and I was helpless to stop it.
I took a step forward putting myself between Brooks and Bren. “I know your face, too. Did you grow up here in Sandusky?
“I did. I went to East High School,” Bren said.
“It’s a small world. I went there too. Go Wildcats!”
Bren smiled. “You were on the debate team.”
A chill went through me. Why did she remember me? “I was, my dad insisted.”
“You aren’t supposed to be here.” She looked at me for a long pause, taking her focus off the armed agent behind me.
“Right, sure. We can talk about it. Put down the gun.”
“I… I can’t. He’ll hurt me.” She gestured to Brooks with the gun.
“He won’t. He wants you to talk to us. We both want to talk this out. Nobody needs to get hurt.”
Bren nodded slowly, and when I least expected it, she lowered the gun. I went to her, hoping she wouldn’t change her mind, but she stood there frozen while I disarmed her. “Please help me.”
“I’ll try.”
“You’re the one, aren’t you? The one whose mother was getting too close.”
“Do you know my mother?”
“She was getting too close. I remember them talking about it.”
I nodded.
Agent Brooks cuffed Bren, and we started the walk back to the hotel. Somehow, it seemed so much farther on the way back.
Chapter 28
Commander Jennings flipped a folder open on the table. “Bren Clancy has a record. Most of it’s sealed. She’s a foster care fail, ran away when she was sixteen, and has been on her own ever since. Bren spent some time on the streets but things settled down a couple of years ago. She got a regular job and went to community college for a while.”
Brooks flipped through the file. “So, something in her life changed a few years ago. And suddenly she seems stable. It seems like someone was helping her along. Most people who don’t develop adult skills don’t just pull ahead in life without some help.”
“So, we know someone has been helping her. She owes somebody. I’d be willing to bet that person is our killer,” I said.
“Right, so we just need her to tell us who that is,” said Commander Jennings.
Brooks shook his head. “Good luck with that. If she’s loyal enough to help the killer kidnap and kill people, then she’s not going to just give them up. She risked everything for him. She will want to protect him.”
“We can interview her known contacts, but that will take too much time. How can we get her to give him up?” I asked.
“We have to shift her loyalty,” Brooks said.
“That sounds complicated,” Commander Jennings said.
“It is. We have to convince her he is betraying her. Or give her someone she values more than him. Given her history, I doubt the second option will be viable.”
“No, it sounds like she used up her other connections a long time ago,” Jennings said.
“True, but maybe there is more to her and her life than that. I mean she went to college, she made something of herself,” I said.
Brooks drummed his pen on the file as he thought. “That’s the question. What did she make of herself? Besides being part of these murders.”
I didn’t like the way Brooks only said murders. He thought Genevieve was dead, but I wasn’t ready to go there. It was too quick and too final. It seemed like whatever the killer wanted was never quick. “Well, let’s get in there and find out what this lady has to say.” The woman’s familiar look bothered me. Where had I seen her before? I was sure she looked familiar, it was right there in my memories, but I just couldn’t get to it.
***
I decided to call Jesse one more time while I was waiting for the interview to begin. His phone rang more times than it should have without voice mail picking up the call.
“Hello?” Jesse’s voice sounded strange.
“Hey, is everything okay?”
“Avery, it’s fine. Everything’s fine.”
He didn’t sound fine, he sounded strange like he was talking with his hand over his mouth. “It this a bad time?” Maybe he’d moved on. I didn’t want to be in that kind of situation. I cringed as I considered the possibility and the awkward reality that he still had my dog. “How is Milly doing?”
“Milly, she’s good. Mom and Amelia are spoiling her rotten. You may not want her back.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back to get her before you know it.”
“I sure hope that means things are going well.”
What could I really tell him? “No, but look, I have an interview in a minute.”
“Avery, wait. I have to tell you something.” Jesse’s voice cracked, and for a moment, I didn’t think I could hold any more loss or I would fall apart.
“Yes?” A uniformed officer waved for me to come to the interview room from the break room door. I held up my index finger. I needed one more minute.
“I’m on an assignment right now. I should have told you, but I didn’t realize things would move so quickly.
“Assignment? For what?” I asked.
“I can’t tell you.”
“Oh… Well, stay safe.”
“You too!” Jesse said.
“I have to go. A suspect is waiting in the interview room.”
“You found the killer?” Jesse asked.
“Close, we were so close.”
***
The interview room was ten degrees cooler than most people would find comfortable. They wanted Bren to be uncomfortable. Agent Brooks was taking the lead. I had to accept that. Until I had a badge of my own again, I would have to be second fiddle. I agreed to watch from behind the two-way mirror. It wasn’t ideal, I could interpret what she said, but I couldn’t interview her. I tapped the microphone to see if Agent Brooks would react to the pop in his earpiece. If it bothered him, he didn’t react.
Brooks held up the iPad where Kirk Nelson had downloaded an assortment of video evidence. He found the image of Bren approaching Genevieve and the abduction that took place moments later.
I watched her squirm away from the image. She wasn’t as confident about her actions without her significant other.
“So this is you. And this lady, do you know who she is?” Brooks pointed to the paused image of Genevieve.
“How would I know?” Bren looked down at her hands.
Brooks pushed the iPad back where Bren was looking. “Well, here you are with her. It would suggest that you know her. Oh look, you fell and this nice lady tried to help you. But what happens here? This man chloroformed the woman who was trying to help you. Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a sob.
“All right, that’s all right. You weren’t involved in the selection process. You didn’t choose this woman, did you? He couldn’t trust you with something as important as that.” Brooks was twisting the story to get a response.
“I… I can’t say,” Bren muttered.
“I understand. Trust is a tricky thing. If you had earned his trust, I know
he could have included you. But he was the one who chose. You were only along for the ride.”
“It wasn’t like that.” Bren was falling for it.
I held my breath—could he get her to give up the man?
“Because it sure seems like it. I have to tell you, body language is kind of my thing. I’ve been looking at this video, and I see a problem here.”
“The lady…”
“No, not with the lady, she is open and polite. Look, she invites in the conversation. But your friend here, he is just a friend, right?”
“No, that’s not true.” Bren looked at the video more carefully.
“No? Look at him. He’s turned away from you the entire time. He’s open to her. See how he turns his body so you’re blocked out.”
“No, he’s protecting me,” Bren said.
“It doesn’t look that way to me. His attention is on this woman. Who did you say she was?” Brooks was fishing again; he wanted to know her level of involvement.
“I don’t know.” Bren’s knuckles were white on the edge of the table.
“It’s a shame he isn’t including you. You get this little part, but all the rest is for him. It’s what he needs. He’s quite the artist.”
Bren brightened up. “You know about that?”
“Sure, he has talent. Can you tell me where he learned it?”
I felt the bile rising in my throat. He was talking about carving a human body like a piece of wood. How could she make that jump in her mind?
“I think he has natural talent. But his mother was an artist, too.”
Officer Miller walked into the room with me. Commander Jennings looked up to see who was there. “Ms. Rich? I’m sorry to interrupt.”
“It’s all right. Can I help you?”
Officer Miller glanced at the interview in progress before she answered me. “This is strange, but there is a woman here to see you.”
“Who is it?” I asked.
“She says her name is Marge Dixon.”
“Oh, all right. She investigated one of our victims.” And I had every intention of calling her, but I hadn’t had a moment. How was she here now? I wondered if my dad contacted her.