by Jim Laughter
“Do you think something has happened to my husband?”
Damn! I didn’t check the trunk. This bastard might be dead in the trunk and here I am talking to his damn wife.
“Probably not, ma’am,” he answered, although he knew people don’t usually leave unlocked cars in rest areas with valuable items lying in the seat. Then again, this wouldn’t be the first time an otherwise honest citizen got himself in over his head and killed on a drug deal gone bust. A motorhome, interstate travel, missing person—it all fit.
“Ma’am, do you think your husband might have gone back to his office?”
“How would he get there if you have his car?”
“Maybe with this preacher he was meeting. Have you called his office?”
“Yes sir, a few minutes ago, but I only got the voicemail. They close at 5:30.”
“And your husband didn’t tell you the name of the person he was meeting tonight?”
“No sir. But you could ask Alice Baker.”
“Alice Baker, ma’am?”
Johnson jotted down the name on the back of another business card.
“Matt’s receptionist.”
“Do you have her phone number, ma’am?”
“No, but it should be in Matt’s cell phone directory.”
“Mrs. Barnes, I’ll call Mrs. Baker to see if she has heard from him. I’ll also call the city police to send a car to your house. You stay home. If your husband calls, please let me know. I have his cell phone.”
He’s probably foolin’ around with his receptionist and just left his car here while they visit the local no-tell motel. Guess his phone’s not the only thing that needed charging.
“Do you think something has happened to my husband, officer?” Dena Barnes asked again. Johnson could hear her voice break.
“It doesn’t look like it, ma’am. The car appears fine and there’s no sign of violence. He probably just got busy with this preacher and lost track of time.”
Johnson knew this was a lie and either this guy was plugging the local talent or he was dead in a ditch or in a hospital somewhere. He thought about the trunk again and looked around until he found the trunk release switch. He opened the trunk the rest of the way and shined his flashlight into the dimly lit interior. Empty, thank God.
“Officer? Are you still there?”
“Yes ma’am, I’m here. I was just checking something.”
He closed the trunk and returned to his patrol car.
“I’ll call Mrs. Baker right away, and you wait for the local police to arrive. Okay?”
“Yes sir. I’ll wait.”
“And Mrs. Barnes?”
“Yes?”
“I wouldn’t worry. These things are never as bad as they seem.”
After hanging up from Dena Barnes, Johnson found Alice Baker’s home phone number in Barnes’ cell phone directory and dialed it.
“Hey boss! What’s up?”
Well, he’s not plugging his receptionist.
“Mrs. Baker?”
“Yes, who is this?” She read her caller ID to confirm that the incoming call was from her boss’s cell phone. “Matt?”
“Mrs. Baker, this is Officer Bobby Johnson with the Utah State Police.”
A long pause on the phone made Johnson realize that Barnes’ receptionist had not heard from him since closing the office earlier.
“Is something wrong, officer?”
“Mrs. Baker, I understand from Mr. Barnes’ wife that he had an appointment with a man at a rest area this evening after work. Is that correct?”
“That’s right,” Alice answered.
“Could you tell me the name of the person and any other pertinent information about Mr. Barnes’ appointment?”
“Has something happened to Matt?” Alice asked. “Is he all right?”
“I’m not really sure one way or the other, ma’am. Mr. Barnes didn’t make it home from work and his wife is a bit worried. Now, about Mr. Barnes’ appointment?”
He saw no reason to tell the receptionist about finding Barnes’ car abandoned at the rest area.
“Yes sir,” Alice said. “He was meeting with a Reverend Samuels at 6 p.m. at the rest area west of Ogden on I-84.”
“Samuels?”
“Yes sir.”
“No first name, ma’am?”
“No sir. Just Reverend Samuels.”
“Why didn’t Reverend Samuels come to Mr. Barnes’ office?”
“He said he was in a motorhome and didn’t feel comfortable driving in downtown traffic.”
“Did you get a phone number for Reverend Samuels, or maybe a description of his motorhome?”
“No sir. He said he was calling from a pay phone from out of town, and he said he’d be parked in the semi-truck area and that he had a silver car in tow.”
“Silver car?”
“Yes sir.”
“Did he say what kind of car?”
“No sir, just silver. He said Matt couldn’t miss it.”
Trooper Johnson looked at the cell phone and noticed the camera function button. He had an idea that might have been a little far-fetched but was probably worth a try.
“Thank you, Mrs. Baker. If you think of anything that might help us locate Mr. Barnes, or if he happens to call you, please contact the State Police. You can also call Mr. Barnes’ cell phone. I’ll leave it turned on.”
Johnson hung up from speaking to Alice Baker and keyed his patrol unit radio. “Dispatch, 7-2.”
“Seven-two, Dispatch. Go ahead.”
“Dispatch, I’m investigating an abandoned vehicle at the Ogden I-84 west rest area: 2008 Kia Optima. Black, 4-door sedan. License number 827KY3. Possible missing person. Mr. Matthew Barnes, B-A-R-N-E-S, Certified Public Accountant. Address is 3572 Glen Cove Drive in Ogden.”
He gave the dispatch operator Barnes’ home phone number and told her Barnes’ wife’s name and that she was waiting at home.
“Ten-four, 7-2. Do you require backup?”
“Not at this time, dispatch,” Johnson said. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d call the local police and have a unit sent to the subject’s home address to start a missing person’s report.”
“Ten-four, 7-2.”
“Dispatch, I’m going to check out a possible lead at the visitor center. I’ll notify you if I need forensics,” Johnson said. “Seven-two out.”
“Ten-four, 7-2. Dispatch out.”
After hanging up from dispatch, Trooper Johnson drove his patrol car to the visitor center. The clock on his dashboard said 10:45 p.m. The center was set to close in another fifteen minutes.
The receptionist behind a long oak counter, a middle-aged woman named Doreen Gray, looked up just as Johnson entered the lobby.
“May I help you, officer?”
“I’m curious about that black Kia out there in the truck parking area,” Johnson said, pointing toward the car.
Doreen looked in the direction the officer pointed. “I didn’t notice it sitting there, officer.”
“So you didn’t see it drive in?”
“No sir.”
“Did you happen to notice a motorhome towing a silver car pull in here around 6 p.m.?”
“No sir, sorry. I came on shift at 6:30, and I always park out back and come in the east side entrance.”
Johnson nodded. It wasn’t uncommon for workers at rest areas to not pay attention to cars in their parking lot unless there appeared to be suspicious activities going on around them.
Johnson spotted a half dozen security cameras scattered throughout the public area.
“This rest area has outside security cameras, doesn’t it?”
“Yes sir. We have a 96-hour digital backup system that records all traffic in and out of the rest area.”
“I’m going to need to see your security footage for today after 6 p.m.”
Doreen motioned for Johnson to step through an Employees Only door that led down a short hallway to the rest area operations center. There wasn’t m
uch to the center, just a computer CPU, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and laser printer. There was a bank of eight security monitors arranged in stacks of two, one on top of the other, over a countertop-style desk. The monitors showed the traffic flow of the rest area, including the truck parking area.
Johnson watched Doreen key the security system. The images on the screens all froze for a moment then went blank.
“Six o’clock, Officer Johnson?”
“Yes ma’am,” he said. “Maybe 5:30. I want to see when a certain motorhome arrived.”
Doreen Gray entered 17:30 hours and the date into the computer, recalling the digital images recorded on the system’s hard drive. The pictures on the screen all shifted to reveal the traffic that had entered and exited the rest area at 5:30 p.m., then continued in real time.
Johnson and Gray had been watching the entrance screen for only ten minutes when a gold and silver motorhome left the interstate and made its way through the driving lane and out to the truck parking area. It towed a silver Ford Focus hatchback. The motorhome stopped in one of the truck parking spots but no one left the RV.
“I couldn’t make out a license tag on either the RV or the car, could you?” Johnson asked.
“No sir. But maybe one of the other cameras picked it up.”
“You mean the exit camera?”
“Yes sir.”
The recorded images on the bank of screens shifted continually as traffic entered and exited the rest area. A static camera on the west end of the roof recorded a constant image of the west truck parking area with the motorhome in clear view. The east end camera recorded another dozen cars and other vehicles enter the rest area, most of which stopped at the visitor center so their occupants could use the restroom or stretch their legs.
“Could you fast forward to 6 p.m., please?” Johnson asked.
Doreen set the mouse on the fast-forward indicator on the main computer screen.
“How fast?”
“Times two should do,” Johnson said.
“A poet too, huh?” Doreen teased. “I like that in a man.”
Johnson smiled. “Just pay attention to your mouse there, Doreen,” he said. “I think you’ve been working too hard.”
At five minutes after 6 p.m. a black car left the interstate and entered the rest area. “Hold it right there,” Johnson said. “Can you pause that?”
Doreen Gray paused the image.
“Now back it up and let’s watch that black car in real time.”
Doreen reversed the digital recording until the black car was back on the interstate. Then she clicked the forward command and together they watched a black Kia Optima enter the rest area and drive straight through to the truck parking area, passing from one security monitor to the next. The west end static camera recorded the car stop alongside the gold and silver RV, and a man get out of the car. A moment later, the door of the RV opened and an old man greeted the young man and invited him into the motorhome.
“Seems friendly enough, wouldn’t you say?” Johnson asked.
“Looks like.”
“That old guy doesn’t resemble any drug runners I’ve ever arrested.”
“Drugs? Here?”
“No ma’am,” Johnson said. “He’s a preacher. The young man is an accountant.”
Trooper Johnson and Doreen Gray watched the image of the RV for another twenty minutes when the RV began to pull forward. They watched it turn left toward the west exit then leave the rest area, pulling onto I-84.
The black Kia still sat in the place where its driver had parked it. The driver had not left the RV. When the RV passed the outermost security camera, a passing van blocked the license plates on the back of the car and RV.
“Damn!” Johnson said.
“What?”
“You may not believe this, Doreen, but either something fishy is going on here or you and I just witnessed a kidnapping.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“What the hell!”
The pounding on the door woke Duncan Morris from a sound sleep. He squinted his eyes at the clock radio on the nightstand beside the bed.
“6:20 in the damn mornin’,” he muttered. “Somebody better have a damn good reason for poundin’ on my door at 6:20 in the damn mornin’!”
Morris sat up on the side of the bed, stretched, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He started to lay back down on his nice soft pillow but another knock on the door woke him even further.
“What the hell do you want?” he yelled at whoever decided to stir him at his hour.
“Agent Morris?” George Benjamin called through the door. “Open up, sir.”
Morris pushed up from the bed.
Damn rookie won’t give a man a chance to get a full night’s sleep.
He peered through the privacy peep hole at Benjamin standing on the landing outside his door. He opened the door and stood in just his cotton brief underwear and a pair of black socks.
“What the hell do you want, rookie?” he asked Benjamin. “You know what damn time it is?”
“Yes sir. Sorry, sir,” Benjamin said. “Agent Keller sent me to get you. It’s important.”
Morris motioned for Benjamin to enter his room and closed the door behind them. Benjamin watched Morris fumble with the thumb lock on the door.
“What’s the matter, rookie? Never seen a white man in his skivvies before?”
Benjamin didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure if Morris was serious or not.
“Now what’s so damn important that it can’t wait another hour?”
“We got a hit on our multi-agency missing person bulletin, sir.”
Morris stopped pulling on his pants. “Bartholomew?”
“No sir. Matthew.”
“Matthew?” Morris asked. “Already?”
“Yes sir.”
“Where?”
“Utah, sir. Ogden.”
Morris finished dressing and he and Benjamin returned to Keller’s room where they’d set up their work station. Her’s was the only room with a dining table and couch—a mini-suite they called it.
Benjamin let himself and Morris into Keller’s room using her electronic key card. She was sitting in front of the laptop computer. Morris moved around behind her and looked over her shoulder.
“What’cha got, Keller?”
Keller tapped the laptop screen.
“Matthew Barnes, certified public accountant in Ogden, Utah didn’t make it home night before last. The Utah State Police found his car abandoned at a rest area on I-84 West where he had a scheduled 6 p.m. appointment with a preacher named Samuels driving a motorhome.”
“Damn!” Morris exclaimed. “It’s gotta be one of ours. Have you called them?”
“Uh-huh,” she answered. “They’ve already towed the car and have it in a holding bay. I told them to seal it and leave it untouched until we can get there.”
“Anything else?”
“Oh yeah, there’s more,” she said. “They’ve got security footage of Barnes meeting an old man at the rest area, and of the RV pulling away but leaving Barnes’ car in the parking lot.”
“Holy shit!” Morris exclaimed again. “Is there any way we can see that footage on this thing?”
Benjamin shook his head.
“They didn’t upload the security footage, sir. But they did post a few still shots.”
He clicked the mouse on a picture icon on the bottom right corner of the screen. A half dozen still pictures of a motorhome with a small back car beside it scrolled onto the screen. Standing in the doorway of the RV was the man from the Clay Cup Coffee House—the interstate serial killer.
“Tell me they got a license plate off of that RV,” Morris said.
“No sir. It was blocked by another vehicle.”
“Damn!”
“But they did get a clear picture of the car he has in tow.”
Benjamin locked the cursor onto the picture and moved it sideways until the image of a small silver car attached to the back of the
RV scrolled into view.”
“Ford Focus,” Morris said. “My daughter has one just like it.”
“Maybe it’s hers,” Keller said. “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if murder didn’t run in your family.”
“Smart ass,” Morris answered. “Besides, hers is blue.”
“That car would sure explain how he was able to get John Dupont out of town without arousing suspicion or anyone seeing a motorhome in downtown Murfreesboro,” Benjamin said.
“Do you recognize what kind of motorhome that is?” Keller asked Morris.
He looked at the picture on the screen.
“Can’t say, but on my pay, I don’t go shoppin’ for ‘em on a regular basis.”
Benjamin examined at the screen too.
“It’s definitely a diesel pusher,” he said, indicating the flat front and tall windows of the RV. “Fleetwood and Newmar make the most popular ones. I don’t think it’s a Winnebago. I don’t see their standard W logo.”
From the angle of the picture, they couldn’t see the Newmar Dutch Star painted on the back of the RV.
At that moment, Grundy Cooper knocked on the door. Benjamin let him into the room. “You folks ready?”
“Ready? Ready for what?” Morris asked.
“For me to drive you out to the jet, sir.”
“Do I look like I’m ready to go someplace, boy?”
Cooper cast a sideways glance at Keller. “I was told you needed a ride to the airport, LK.”
“We do, Grundy. Give us a half hour to get our things together.”
Cooper nodded. “Damned exciting stuff, huh?” he said to Benjamin. “Guess it’s back to filing reports and making coffee for me.”
“Hell no it ain’t back to filin’ reports for you, rookie,” Morris said. “You’ve got half an hour to get your shit together if you’re goin’ with us.”
“Me sir? With you, sir?”
“Did I stutter?” Morris asked. “What the hell is it with you people? Did I say one damn word you didn’t understand, boy?”
“No sir!” Cooper exclaimed. “Hell yeah I understand you. Every damn word! I’ll be ready! You can count on me!”
Cooper had his gym bag in the truck of the Crown Victoria with a fresh change of clothes in it—blue jeans and a pullover shirt, shorts, socks. He figured he could buy a new white shirt and a pack of underwear and shaving kit in Utah if he had to. He wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity like this to go on a real investigation.