Crossing the Line

by Hugh Macnab

  Thirty minutes later I’m back in a cab heading downtown. The process del Roy used had involved her relaxing me and having me recall troublesome times in my life in a specific and very unusual way. This, she explained, would help to calm down my past distressing memories and free my mind up to deal with my current life.

  Based on how I’m already feeling, I think I believe her.

  As I reach the Homicide Department, I can already feel a buzz in the air and know something is going on. I see both Dan and the Under-Sheriff in the conference room with the rest of my team. I head straight there.

  As I enter, they stop talking, and Kathy gives me an update.

  ‘There’s another victim.’

  ‘Jon Smith, here in Naples?’

  ‘No. Joe Wright up in Tampa. One of two we had warned about being on the kill list.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Surely they would have taken extra precautions?’

  ‘Yes, if they had both received the message.’

  ‘He wasn’t told?’

  ‘Officers knocked on the door of his apartment twice yesterday, without getting an answer. They only found the body today because the downstairs neighbor complained about a stain on the ceiling.’

  ‘A stain?’

  ‘Turned out to be a mix of bodily fluids. According to the Medical Examiner at the scene, Joe Wright has been dead for between six and ten weeks.’

  ‘And nobody noticed?’

  ‘He was single, unemployed and his neighbors describe him as a real loner.’

  As I’m absorbing this latest twist, the Under-Sheriff asks what the implications are for our investigation. I have no answer for him. But Jamie does.

  ‘Our killer is still active. Either the killer has substituted Pamela Wilson in place of Jon Smith here in Naples, or else Jon Smith is next. But if it’s the latter, we still don’t know which of the three Jon Smiths is the most likely target.’

  ‘Then get protection arranged for all three,’ said Dan. ‘We have no choice.’

  I nod to Kathy, who leaves the room to arrange that.

  ‘You think you’ve identified the killer, right?’ asks the Under-Sheriff.

  I explain our thoughts on it being Charline Ellis. Who she is. How the whole thing started, and why we think she’s doing what she is. What I’m not able to tell him is where she is. Yet, that’s obviously what he wants to know.

  A little later, when Dan and the Under-Sheriff have left, and Kathy’s back, we sit trying to work out our new priorities.

  When each of the three have taken two Counties to liaise with, Hillsborough isn’t on the list. So Jamie volunteers to head up there and bring the detectives fully up to speed with everything we know.

  Before he leaves, I ask everyone what they think about all of Charlie’s victims being in their twenties, and Dene interrupts.

  ‘I’m sorry, but with this fresh case in Tampa, I haven’t told you yet.’

  ‘Told me what?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, when you got us to understand that all of her victims were in their twenties, that made some sense, but it still didn’t feel specific enough. And why eight victims on the list? Why not three or eleven?’

  ‘So?’ I prompt.

  ‘I went back through her history and if you add up the number of people responsible for abusing her, I think it was eight.’

  ‘So she’s seeking revenge for eight assaults on eight random people? That doesn’t sound right.’

  ‘It’s more personal that that,’ says Kathy. ‘It has to be.’

  ‘We’re missing something and need to figure it out,’ I say. ‘Unless anyone knows how we can find her, let’s make answering this question our number one task.’

  With that, I leave them to it and head for my cubicle. I haven’t checked for messages or gone through my emails for too long and am feeling out of touch.

  I’ve been catching up for a few hours when Jimi stops by with an update. He sits, I listen. Then, dragging him behind me, I head back into the conference room.

  ‘You got to listen to this,’ I announce, nudging Jimi to talk.

  He’s nervous at first, but fine once he gets started.

  ‘Detective Greyfox asked me to look into a question that was bothering her. How your serial-killer found Pamela Wilson. I found her business cards with her pseudo-name in storage in the evidence locker. She called herself Lady Jane. The card had an address and email. But it also had a web address at the bottom.’

  ‘She has a website?’ asks Jamie.

  ‘Yes, and no. To be accurate, she had a website but appears to have taken it down three years ago.’

  ‘When she retired,’ I add.

  ‘Damn. At least that explains how our killer found Pamela Wilson,’ said Jamie.

  ‘Yes, but that’s not all Jimi discovered,’ I say. ‘Go on Jimi. Tell them.’

  ‘I noticed we had her laptop in the evidence locker, so signed it out. I know you have all been through it for mail and social media activity, but I gave it to one of the cyber-techs to look at. He managed to find where her website had been hosted, and reconstructed it. When I went through the website contact history, I found dialogue between Lady Jane and someone who identified themselves as Charlie Brown - owner of Snoopy.’

  ‘That’s her,’ interrupted Jamie. ‘When I was looking through her childhood, there was a particular picture of her when she was with one of her step-parents. She was holding a Snoopy rag doll.’

  ‘Well spotted, Jamie.’ I congratulate him.

  Jimi has more to tell.

  ‘That’s what I discovered also. So, once I thought I had the killer’s email, I started checking for other dominatrix sites around the State. I didn’t know there were so many. This is big business apparently.’

  ‘How many?’ asked Jamie.

  ‘Too many to count. There were many pages of listings. But that’s not what’s important. I looked for dominatrixes in the locations of each of your victims.’

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ said Dene. ‘She visited others?’

  ‘Correct. In fact, with help from cyber-tech, we found her email address in three other locations. Orlando, Palm Beach and Miami.’

  ‘Not Tallahassee, Jacksonville of Gainesville?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But,’ I add. ‘Stop and think about it for a moment. When Charlie started on her killing spree, she was only thirteen. By the time she contacted her first dominatrix, she was sixteen and had been already killing for three years.’

  ‘So she was too young to visit a dominatrix when she was thirteen, to fifteen,’ said Jamie. ‘So, Pamela Wilson was her first? But she doesn’t act like that on the video?’

  ’She must have been finding some other way to punish herself before discovering how a dominatrix could help her,’ I suggest.

  ‘Too young for a dominatrix, but not too young to kill in cold blood,’ Jamie adds. ‘This is fantastic work, Jimi, well done.’

  Pleased with the praise, Jimi leaves the room and once again we regroup.

  ‘So, we’re back to where we were before. Trying to figure out why our killer is targeting these specific people. If we can do that, maybe we will understand which of the three Jon Smiths to focus on protecting,’ I say.

  As if by divine intervention, my cell rings and seeing it’s Luisa del Roy, I tell the group and step outside to take the call.

  ‘Doctor?’

  ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything important, detective?’

  ‘No, not at all. How can I help?’

  ‘It’s the other way round, detective. Or at least it may be.’

  ‘I’m all ears. We need all the help we can get.’

  ‘I’ve been going over all the case records you sent me, and your current notes about Charline Ellis. First, I would congratulate you and your team on what you have figured out so far. Well done.’

  ‘Thanks, doctor. I’ll pass that along.’

  ‘Okay. Now I see you have figured out that the number eight is significant
?’

  ‘The number of people who abused her as a child.’

  ‘Yes. You also say you realize that it’s more personal than her just randomly choosing eight names all these years ago, then methodically killing them one-by-one.’

  ‘Sure. Have you figured out why she’s choosing these names?’

  ‘Not exactly. But let me ask you a question first. They took her into Junior High when she was twelve, but she didn’t run away until she was thirteen. Why did she wait?’

  I think about that for a moment, but nothing comes to mind.

  ‘I don’t know doctor. Tell me.’

  ‘I think she was using the year to prepare. She was already intelligent and computer literate. At Junior High, I bet she had access to a school library and computers.’

  ‘She was planning?’

  ‘That’s what I think. You realize that although still very young, she was a clear thinker and strategist. I think she used that year to find the most suitable eight names for her revenge.’

  ‘What criteria did she pick?’

  ‘It would surprise me if it isn’t something to do with abuse of other children.’

  ‘But only two of the names on the list have ever been on the sex-offenders register?’

  ‘You know better than I detective, there are many more times that number who never end up on trial, or even get officially charged.’

  ‘So, you think we should look for the fish that got away?’

  ‘Precisely. And concentrate on news reporting for the year your suspect was at Junior High.’

  After that, I thank del Roy and hurry back to the conference room to update the team. Jamie has already left for Tampa, but the others are keen to hear everything.

  When I leave, they’re already starting to search news articles for that one particular year. It really feels like we’re getting a handle on the case at last. This is maybe going to be the breakthrough we need.

  36

  The walk back to my apartment on a balmy evening allows me to think back through the case and reassure myself that our priorities are correct. That we’re truly getting close to understanding our killer. We really need to ID which Jon Smith is on her list.

  The other concern going round in my head is whether we can justify using him as bait. A question I would never discuss with anyone else. A question I’m not even sure I want to discuss with myself. But everyone knows, if you want to catch a fish, you use bait.

  If del Roy’s other assumption is correct, then whichever Jon Smith is the one, he’s had some involvement with child abuse and it has to have been in the news. That’s something specific I can look into when I get home.

  When I open the apartment door, the first thing I notice is the smell. Someone’s cooking, and the smell is great. I recognize Taylor Swift singing ‘Shake it off’ on Alexa.

  Trace is in the kitchen, and opens our conversation with a reprimand.

  ‘You must start letting me know when you’re on the way home, detective. You’re lucky tonight, I guessed right.’

  ‘You’ve cooked?’

  ‘I hope you like pasta?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Right, sit down,’ she tells me, handing me a Corona from the fridge.

  I do as I’m told and sit watching this twelve-year-old-wonder open the oven and remove a casserole with a bubbling cheese topping.

  ‘Cheesy pasta from a box. But I cooked it,’ she tells me, laughing.

  ‘It smells delicious, Trace. Thank you.’

  As we eat, she asks me about how my case is going, and I tell her we have three possible next victims and can’t decide which would be the most likely. That perhaps one of them has been accused of child-abuse in the past, but as he wasn’t charged, he has no record.

  Now, although as far as I can remember, I haven’t told her much about the case, she’s smarter than I imagine. That becomes blindingly obvious when she mentions that if the killer had targeted one of these three people six years ago, she wouldn’t have been using news-streaming back then.

  When she says this, my mind seizes up. How the hell did she figure that out? I don’t remember telling her that the killer created a kill-list six years ago. But before I even ask, she explains her own theory a little more, that the killer was probably accessing local press articles, or maybe she had online access to their archives.

  When I hear that, I stop worrying about how Trace has figured this out and realize that what she’s saying would agree with what Luisa del Roy had told me. The killer was doing her research six years ago when she was at Junior High.

  Trace pushes her empty plate aside, opens the laptop, and suggests we look at which newspapers were likely to have covered stories about child abuse story six years ago.

  To my dismay, we find fifty possibilities in circulation within Florida alone. I’m about to focus just on the smaller number that have State-wide distribution, when Trace suggests if we’re only looking for reports of possible abuse, local press would be the most likely to cover the stories, whereas convictions would be by State-wide press.

  At this point, I’m beginning to wonder which of us is the detective.

  I log onto the Sheriff’s office network and look back through our online notes on the case to check past locations for the three Jon Smiths. One of them has always been resident in Naples. Another has been living in Arkansas until he moved here five years ago. The third was born and raised outside Panama City Beach and moved to Naples six years ago.

  It looks to me like we can rule the Arkansas Smith out of the equation. It’s unlikely that the press would cover a possible Arkansas abuse case in Florida. So, I’m down to two.

  The one who lived in Panama City Beach six years ago would have been on her list there, but most likely she would have killed him in the earlier stages when she was up in Tallahassee. Making a giant leap, I discard Panama Smith - number two.

  That now leaves us with one to concentrate on and I also know that he’s a lifelong Naples resident, so I can easily single out the local Press. There are only two.

  The Naples Daily News and the News-Herald.

  Unfortunately, at that point, we run into a brick wall. Neither offers online research facilities for back-issues.

  Unable to get any further, I tell Trace I’ll gain archive access through the office the next day and we mutually agreed to stop thinking about it, and enjoy a couple of episodes of MASH.

  The following morning starts strangely with Alexa choosing to waken me to an old single by the Rolling Stones - Lady Jane of all tracks. I keep Alexa on a low volume to allow Trace to sleep.

  I lay in bed listening to Mick Jagger sing the words - My sweet Lady Jane, When I see you again, Your servant am I, and will humbly remain.

  I can’t help but wonder if Pamela Wilson - AKA Lady Jane, is going to find peace and happiness in the afterlife. I guess I feel half-way to helping her achieve whatever might be possible, with two of her abusers being arraigned, but I still need to catch her killer to complete the job. That may bring her peace, but I doubt it will deliver happiness. If she killed Jason, it will haunt her forever.

  With my body still feeling good, I quietly slip on the running gear, check that Trace is okay, leave ten dollars on the breakfast bar and set off for one of my longer routes. As I run, I break my habit of not thinking. I don’t mean to, it just happens.

  In my thoughts, I’m back at Luisa del Roy’s. She’d gone through a relaxation exercise with me. My eyes were closed, but I can still hear her voice guiding me through my past.

  When she explained the process to me, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Even now, having gone through the process, I’m still not quite sure what I think of it all.

  Sure, the past events I thought about included the moment I shot and killed a two-year-old girl by accident, as well as my decision to terminate Bossy-boots, but these were all mixed up with other things that happened to me in the past, some even from childhood.

  Thinking back now, it’s strange the
way my unconscious mind didn’t seem to prioritize any one memory over another, regardless of how I thought it should.

  In some way, I find that reassuring. I think the whole process has shifted the balance of how I view my past decisions or actions. In a positive way.

  Even now as I run, I can sense my mind clearing. If not exactly razor-sharp, at least thinking more clearly than it has been for a long time. Del Roy said that I would feel different after a good night’s sleep, and although at the time, I didn’t want to be skeptical, I was.

  But here I am. Feeling better than I have in almost a year.

  It’s only when I finally slow down entering the car park at the rear of the Sheriff’s office that I even realize I’ve been thinking all the way.

  Fifty minutes. Odd. Never done that before.

  Showered, changed and pouring coffee, I bump into Dan. After a few friendly exchanges, he asks me about the incident - his word not mine - upstairs in the Narcs conference room. I give him my update. He gets it. I can see it in his eyes. He gives me a telling off for interfering, and for not respecting the lieutenant when he asked me to leave. I take it like a man. Well, as like a man as I can, given the obvious difficulties I have with the thought.

  Dutifully contrite, tail between my legs, I head for the conference room to join the team.

  First up, Jamie tells us about the victim up in Tampa. Joe Wright.

  It fits our killer’s profile perfectly. He was found naked on the floor in his lounge. He’d suffered one puncture wound to the carotid artery in his neck. It looked like he’d clamped his hand over the wound and staggered as far as his main lounge before collapsing and dying. There was no sign of anyone else being present in the apartment at the time of his death, which is obviously impossible. Because he had died so many weeks before, the body was in a state of advanced decomposition before it was discovered. The stain in the downstairs apartment ceiling was confirmed as decomposing body fluids. A mix of blood, urine and decaying flesh.