by Jim Laughter
My God! It can’t be true.
“He’s killing men of the same names and in the same order that the original apostles appear in the Bible. We need to find him before he can kill again.”
Chapter Forty-Four
The Washington Bureau agents had just returned to the Holiday Inn when Morris’ cell phone rang. He hoped it was the Denver bureau calling to say they’d arrested the interstate serial killer. He knew that would be too easy but one could always hope.
“Morris,” he said into his phone.
“Agent Morris, this is Cooper.” The boy’s voice sounded excited.
“Cooper? What the hell are you callin’ me for? You’re supposed to be gettin’ the plane ready so we can leave for Denver.”
“They found Matthew Barnes’ body a few minutes ago, sir.”
“Damn!”
Keller and Benjamin were packing their gear when they heard Morris curse.
“What?” Keller asked.
“They found Matthew Barnes’ body.”
“Where?” She and Benjamin stopped packing and watched Morris. “Who found Barnes’ body?”
“How the hell should I know? I ain’t psychic like Benjamin the Magnificent there.”
Cooper heard the exchange between Morris and Keller. “Blue Creek, sir.”
“Blue Creek? Where the hell is Blue Creek?”
Benjamin entered the name into the Google search engine.
“Here it is, sir,” he said. “Blue Creek is a ghost town in Box Elder County. It’s an old railroad settlement that was part of the First Transcontinental Railroad.”
“I don’t give a hoot in hell about that crap!” Morris exclaimed. “Where is it?”
Benjamin started to answer when Cooper said, “It’s fifty or sixty miles northwest of Ogden, sir. Just off I-84 a couple of miles.”
Benjamin pulled up a map of the area on the laptop. “That don’t make one damn bit of sense,” Morris said.
“What, Duncan? What doesn’t make any sense?” Keller asked.
Morris pointed at the map on the screen. “If this maniac is from Denver, then what the hell is he doin’ goin’ northwest? Denver is due east of here.”
“Maybe he’s not finished,” Benjamin interjected. “He’s three weeks early on this kill. Maybe he’s accelerated his schedule.”
“We need to get to the kill site,” Keller said. She took Morris’ cell phone from him and pressed the speaker phone key. “Cooper, can you hear me?”
“Yes ma’am.” Keller cringed at being called ma’am.
“How the hell did you do that?” Morris asked.
“Do what?”
“Turn on a speaker on that damn thing.”
Keller just shook her head. “I’ll show you later.”
“Did you know that phone had a speaker on it?” Morris asked Benjamin.
“They all do,” Benjamin answered, not elaborating on Morris’ lack of technical prowess.
Keller asked Cooper where he was and how long it would take him to pick them up at the hotel. He said he’d just finished checking the Suburban out of the motor pool and would be there in about twenty minutes.
“Are you bringing Steed and Fontenot with you?”
“Only Fontenot,” Cooper answered. “The bureau chief sent Steed to Salt Lake City to pick up another vehicle for him.”
Morris laughed at Steed’s predicament. “Serves the smart ass right for runnin’ off at the mouth at me.”
Cooper picked up Morris, Keller, and Benjamin at the Holiday Inn and headed the Suburban northwest on I-84. They passed the exits for Pleasant View, Willard, and Brigham City, and skirted the Great Salt Lake. Morris wasn’t impressed by the barren landscape. How anyone could choose to live in desolation like this was beyond him.
After forty minutes on the I-84, they reached exit 24 where Cooper turned the vehicle toward Valley, Utah. After about a half mile, they turned left onto 18400 Road North for almost two miles. Rising ahead of them from the desert floor was an imposing range of mountains.
“What’s the story on this ghost town?” Benjamin asked Fontenot.
Fontenot could tell that Morris didn’t care one way or the other about Blue Creek but Keller and Benjamin seemed genuinely interested.
“Blue Creek is a ghost town in Box Elder County,” she said. “It was a railroad settlement started as a Union Pacific camp during the final stages of construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad.”
Fontenot pointed at the mountain range looming ahead of them. “Those are the Promontory Mountains. Blue Creek is located on the eastern slope about 15-miles southeast of Snowville and 20-miles west of Tremonton. It existed from the late 1860s until it was abandoned in the 1900s.”
“Interesting,” Keller said.
“The settlement was named for the Blue Creek Spring which is 2.5 miles to the south. It was originally a railroad camp but later became a farming community with a few scattered homes and a post office.”
“And now it’s a ghost town?” Benjamin asked.
“Yeah, there’s not much there anymore. It’s popular with hikers and star gazers. It has a great view of the night sky.”
When the Suburban reached Blue Creek, the agents saw a half dozen Utah State Police cars and a Box Elder County Sheriff car pulled onto the desert away from the main section of the old settlement. A county coroner vehicle was also present.
“These boys don’t waste no time, do they?” Morris said.
“I just hope they haven’t moved anything or disturbed the crime scene,” Keller said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a DNA sample off the body.”
Cooper stopped the Suburban alongside a state highway patrol car. The area had been cordoned with cones and crime scene tape, and tent sidings had been erected around what Keller assumed was the body of Matthew Barnes.
The rookie agents were not prepared for the gristly scene that greeted them when they reached the crime scene. Keller and Morris had experienced similar situations before, but the gruesome murder caused the young agents to react with revulsion.
“Oh shit!” Cooper said and clamped his right hand over his mouth, retching into the palm of his hand. He turned and ran from the tent and fell to his knees twenty yards from the scene.
Benjamin didn’t vomit but he tasted the bile rise in his throat. He’d known the scene was going to be awful, considering the other crime scene photos that he’d seen, but he didn’t expect anything like this. Barnes’ decapitated body had already begun to bloat and was swarming with flies. The body looked like desert animals, probably coyotes, had torn at the extremities during the night.
“Jeee-sus,” Benjamin muttered. “My sweet Jesus.”
Keller and Morris examined the body. It lay in a thick pool of blood and was pinned to the ground by a half dozen spears. Its arms were outstretched and held in place by ropes tied to galvanized spikes driven into the desert floor. The Box Elder County Coroner knelt over the body taking swabs from the chest of Matthew Barnes. Morris lifted a cloth covering Matthew Barnes’ head which lay two feet from the body.
“I guess the cause of death is obvious.”
The coroner shook his head. “That’s not the cause of death.” He pointed at the spears severing the femoral arteries in both of Barnes’ legs.
“This boy bled out. He was alive when these things were thrust through his legs, arms, and sides. And see this big pool of blood?”
He made a circular sweeping motion with his right hand taking in the blood the body lay in.
“There’s four or five quarts of blood here. Damn near every ounce of blood this boy had in his body.” He stood and faced Morris. “Whoever did this bled this kid like a slaughtered hog before he cut his head off.”
Morris was about to say something when he heard the sound of a helicopter approaching. He and Keller stepped out of the tent and watched an FBI helicopter settle down fifty yards past the parked cars and coroner van. He recognized Agent Donald Steed when he stepped from the he
licopter. He held his sunglasses in one hand and a satellite phone in the other.
Steed waved when he saw Keller and Morris. Cooper was still avoiding the crime scene but Benjamin stayed in the tent to question the coroner on the exact cause of death and to help identify the murder weapons. Morris called out to Steed when the Ogden agent drew close enough to hear him over the noise of the helicopter.
“What’s up?”
“We tried to call you on your cell but you’re in a dead zone out here,” Steed shouted back and handed the satellite phone to Morris. “There’s a call for you from Denver.”
Morris took the phone and held it against his ear. “Morris.”
“Special Agent Morris, this is Special Agent Sherman Gregory with the Denver office.”
“Uh-huh. Do you have some good news for me?”
“I think so. It’s probably not the news you were expecting, but I’ll bet its pretty close.”
Morris hated it when people waltzed around an answer. Why can’t people be direct? Why complicate things? Just spit it out!
“So did you make contact with that preacher in Denver, Agent Gregory?”
“Yes sir. We visited Reverend Preston at his church this morning.”
“And his father?”
“His father is preaching this weekend in Portland, Oregon at a little church pastored by a man named Thaddaeus Griffin,” Gregory answered. “We have the address, and we contacted the Portland city police to do a drive-by to verify the motorhome is on site.”
“Is it?”
“Yes sir. And so is the silver Ford Focus. Both are parked at a church on the east side of Portland.”
Keller tugged on Morris’ sleeve. “What’s up?”
“They’ve located the motorhome at a church in Portland, Oregon.”
“That answers the question of why he was heading northwest instead of back to Denver, doesn’t it?”
Morris yelled at Cooper and told him to get Benjamin from the crime scene tent. “And bring those car keys over here to Steed then get your ass in that helicopter if you want to go with us.”
Morris told Steed and Fontenot to stay behind and control the crime scene. Cooper really wasn’t sure if he wanted to go to another crime scene but he wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to participate in a serial killer investigation. Besides, he still needed a ride back to Nashville.
“We’re takin’ that chopper back to Ogden,” Morris yelled at Keller. “Go tell the pilot we need to go directly to the airport where the jet is parked, and have someone from the Ogden field office go to the hotel, pack our equipment, and meet us at the jet.”
“Agent Gregory,” Morris yelled back into the satellite phone, “I want you to contact the Portland police and tell them to watch the church but they are not to move on the scene unless someone tries to move that RV or car. We’re on our way.”
Morris hung up the satellite phone and followed Keller toward the helicopter. Benjamin and Cooper ran and caught up to them just as they reached the helicopter. Keller turned and waved back at Fontenot and Steed standing near the crime scene. She had complete confidence the two agents could handle the details of the investigation.
George Benjamin slid into the seat next to Morris, and Cooper got in beside Keller.
“You care to guess what the name of the next victim is, Professor?” Morris asked Benjamin.
“Well sir, according to the list of names in the Bible, the next victim should be James the Lesser.”
“James the Lesser? What the hell kind’a name is that?”
Benjamin started to remove his New Testament from this jacket pocket but thought better of it.
“Do you remember the victim in Kentucky, sir?”
“James Fisher?”
“Yes sir.”
“So?”
“James Fisher was killed in the same order as the Apostle James the Great,” Benjamin said. “It stands to reason that since there were two apostles named James that one would be the greater and one the lesser.”
“So you’re sayin’ we should be lookin’ for another victim named James. That right?”
“Yes sir.”
“Then why is this killer preachin’ for a man in Oregon named Thaddaeus?”
“Thaddaeus, sir?”
“Accordin’ to the Denver office, our killer, Samuel Preston, is preachin’ in Portland, Oregon at a church pastored by a man named Thaddaeus Griffin.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Benjamin said. “The next apostle on the list is James the Lesser, not Thaddaeus.”
“How was he killed?” Keller asked.
“Accordin’ to church history, he was thrown from the Pinnacle in Jerusalem.”
“The Pinnacle? What’s that?”
“It’s at the top of the temple in Jerusalem where Jesus was tempted by the devil and shown the kingdoms of the world. History says that James was thrown from the Pinnacle by the Scribes and Pharisees. When he didn’t die from the fall, he was stoned and his brains were beat out of his head with a club.”
“My God!” Keller said.
“It doesn’t make sense that our killer would skip James and move right to Thaddaeus. I’m sure he knows the order of the apostles.”
Keller wasn’t sure how this change of events was going to impact the outcome of their investigation. “Maybe he’s already killed James the Lesser and we just haven’t found his body yet.”
“Maybe so,” Benjamin agreed. “We haven’t found Bartholomew either. When we get back to Ogden, we need to have them do a missing persons search for someone with a name like James Little or James Smalley, something like that.”
“Assumin’ Thaddaeus is this nut-ball’s next victim,” Morris said, “how did the apostle die?”
Benjamin thought about the church history he’d studied in seminary. “According to church tradition, Thaddaeus taught in Armenia, Syria, and Persia where he was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.”
“You mean like from a bow and arrow?”
“Common weapons of the time.”
“Well, he’s not gonna get a chance to skewer this fella in Oregon,” Morris said. “I’m gonna shoot this son of a bitch and send his murderin’ ass to the happy huntin’ grounds.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The federal agents approached the Newmar motorhome just before midnight Friday. The RV sat dark and eerie, a murderer asleep inside. Morris and Benjamin, along with two members of the Portland swat team stationed themselves on either side of the door. The mobile home beside the church was also dark. No one stirred there either. Morris looked at his watch—11:45 p.m., the perfect time to catch a killer in bed.
Morris tried the door handle on the RV. Locked! He hadn’t expected otherwise but one could always hope. He nodded at one of the swat team members who spoke into a portable radio, signaling the rest of the swat team to move toward him. A half-dozen local, state, and federal vehicles entered the church parking lot, sealing off every possible exit, their strobes and headlights turning the peaceful setting into a rainbow of color.
Using the palm of his right hand, Morris slapped the door of the RV five times, sending a pounding sound through the night. A light came on in the trailer house but nothing happened in the RV. Morris pounded on the door again.
“FBI! Open up!”
Still nothing.
A curtain moved inside the mobile home and someone looked out. A moment later the front door of the trailer opened and a thin man stepped out onto the porch. He wore a pair of suit pants and house shoes, and he was still buttoning his shirt. An Oregon highway patrol trooper, his weapon drawn, approached the man and ordered him to stand still. Other lights came on in the trailer and a pregnant woman stepped out onto the porch and stood beside her husband.
This is damn strange. Morris pounded on the RV door again, and again yelled for anyone inside to open the door.
“If you’re looking for Reverend Preston, he’s not there,” the man on the porch said
loud enough for Morris to hear.
“Who are you?” Morris shouted back at the man.
“Thaddaeus Griffin. I pastor this church.”
Morris and Benjamin exchanged confused glances. “Thaddaeus,” Benjamin said. Morris nodded.
“Where is he?” Benjamin asked.
“I drove him to the airport this morning. What’s going on here?”
Morris and Benjamin holstered their weapons and approached the mobile home. The Oregon state trooper still held his weapon on the man but Morris motioned for him to back away.
At seeing the pregnant woman, Keller and Cooper stepped out of one of the federal vehicles and made their way to the porch. Keller’s motherly instincts drew her to the young woman.
“Maybe we should go inside,” she said when she reached the young couple.
“What’s going on here?” Griffin asked again. “Why is the FBI concerned with Reverend Preston?”
“Keller’s right,” Morris said.
Damn small trailer.
“Cooper, you stay outside and search the grounds with these men.”
“Yes sir.”
“See if you can get into that motorhome.”
“Yes sir. There’s probably a crowbar in one of the state units.”
“I have the keys,” Pastor Griffin said.
Cooper stopped and turned back toward the pastor. Morris hadn’t expected the pastor to offer that kind of information. It took him by surprise.
“You have the keys?”
“Yes sir.”
“We’re gonna need those keys.”
Griffin didn’t move or make any offer to get the keys for the federal agent. Instead, he finished buttoning his shirt. He’d had enough of these agents, especially this brash old man who had stepped uninvited onto his front porch.
“You have me at a disadvantage, agent.”
“Morris,” he said. “Duncan Morris.”
He reached out his hand to the pastor who shook it with some reluctance.
“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this.”
Pastor Griffin motioned toward the motorhome sitting at the back of the church property.