Crossing the Line

by Hugh Macnab

  I can’t imagine how the downstairs neighbor might feel when they explain that to him. Creepy.

  Determining a precise date of death was impossible, so the door-to-door visits hadn’t turned up anything of specific use. The usual story, no-one had seen or heard anything.

  Other than that, Jamie has brought the Hillsborough homicide folks up-to-date on our investigation and offered to act as their liaison down here.

  Dene and Kathy are about to explain what they’ve been doing, trying to find press articles that will help us understand how Charlie has put her kill list together, when I interrupt and tell everyone how I have thought through the three Jon Smiths the previous evening. I don’t mention that a twelve-year-old runaway, who’s sleeping on the floor of my apartment, has done most of the work. Everyone agreed with the logic and Kathy takes the action item to dig into the individual we’re now calling JS3.

  Next Dene promises he will talk with several of the local Press agencies and get access to their archives. He plans to start his research as soon as we finish the meeting. Jamie offers to help.

  I feel I’ve nothing else to add, so leave them to it.

  Back in my cubicle, the macaroni and cheese from the night before has worn off and my stomach’s rumbling. So much so, that Dan comes across from his cubicle and asks if I’m hungry. Yes, it embarrasses me, but he smooths it over by telling me he had little the previous night and is heading out for a sub. I tag along.

  Half an hour later we’re sitting under an umbrella, enjoying two subway specials - his treat. I’m wondering if Dan has figured out how hard I’m finding it to get by month-on-month. He has turkey breast with all the fillings; I have a B.L.T. Two 7Ups and we’re all set.

  I expect Dan to ask for an update on the case, but he doesn’t. Instead, he asks how I’m doing with his ex - Luisa del R0y. He clarifies that he isn’t asking about my treatment or anything personal. He’s just wondering how she was to work with professionally.

  I think I shock him with my positive response. To be honest, I shock myself. I didn’t realize therapy can be so effective, so quickly. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.

  Dan seems pleased.

  I suppose he feels responsible as he had taken me there from EJ’s.

  I tell him I’ve met Cliff for lunch and again for breakfast.

  He just grins. I hate it when people do that.

  I can see what he’s thinking, so I correct him by explaining that we met at breakfast, not after waking up together.

  He nods sagely and gives me a wink.

  Unwilling to spend any more time under his inquisition, I turn the tables and ask him how his own love life is going.

  He nearly chokes on some turkey, but keeps chewing, choosing to ignore my question.

  Not one to give up easily, I offer to give him a couple of introductions.

  Nope. No interest. I swear the guy should join a monastery or something.

  Back in the office, a message on my desk tells me to go see Jerry upstairs.

  37

  Jerry is with his team and the DEA guy from the previous meeting, in the conference room. I knock and enter.

  The DEA guy stops talking and turns towards me.

  ‘Welcome detective. How does it feel to come into a meeting when you’re actually invited?’

  Well, I don’t know what I was expecting from the guy, but humor wouldn’t be high on my guess list. I’m not one for laying down, though.

  ‘Actually, I’ve an open invite to this conference room, and am always welcome. How about you?’

  ‘Touché, detective. How about we start with an introduction? I’m James. James Bond.’

  There’s a strange pregnant silence in the room. Hard to explain really, but I can feel the intensity of seven pairs of eyes burning into me. It’s like a single moment in time, drawn out.

  I stick out my hand and say that I’m pleased to meet him.

  As he takes my hand, I can sense the disappointment in the room when I don’t come out with the line they’re obviously all expecting.

  I take one of the spare chairs and sit.

  Jerry quickly brings me up to speed.

  ‘We have the location of the SCG factory. It’s in a small industrial estate on the outskirts of town. We’ve been told they are using nearly fifty locals to cut and package the drugs. Although what these people are doing is illegal, they are innocents. We suspect many are illegal immigrants, but that’s a separate problem. What we have been discussing is how to avoid these people being caught in a cross-fire.’

  Bond chips in.

  ‘Based on many similar operations we’ve been involved in, they will protect the factory strongly. We can expect electrified fences, a gun emplacement or two, and it’s even possible they may have mined the approach from the rear.’

  Jerry and his team go very quiet, and I end up in a one-on-one Q&A season with 007 himself.

  ‘What’s at the rear?’

  ‘Until last year it was swampland. But a construction company has approval to build more industrial units there, so they have been infilling with sand and concrete for the past twelve months. The work is almost complete, but it needs to settle for a good while before they can build. They will probably start next year.’

  ‘So, in the disruption, you think they’ve placed mines?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘So, front entry then?’

  ‘Front entry and by air is what we were debating when you arrived. The problem with air access is…’

  ‘Rocket launchers?’ I suggest.

  ‘Very good, detective. Yes, that would be my fear. We’ve come across that before.’

  ‘Any access from underneath. Sewage maybe?’

  ‘We’ve looked at that, but they aren’t hooked up to the main waste management system. They use a large septic tank.’

  ‘Can we cut off the power?’

  ‘Yes, as long as we aren’t counting on the element of surprise.’

  ‘Do we know how many we will face?’

  ‘Again, only from previous experience. There’s likely to be at least twenty, and possibly a good few more.’

  ‘And they’ll be heavily armed?’

  ‘Sub-machine guns at a minimum. The last place we took down was in Wichita. I brought these pictures to let you all see what we are likely to be up against.’

  At that, 007 spreads a whole range of twenty or more photographs of the armaments they had captured. I don’t recognize a lot of the guns, but I do see a Sig Sauer long-range Sig50 sniper rifle. If they have even one of those and someone who knows how to use it, that could cause a problem. I also single out a Remington 870 Shotgun usually sold for home defense. I wouldn’t want to be caught in someone’s house if they had one of these things. Beyond that there’s an AK-47, and would you believe a Browning? When I see that I ask if he’s serious about one of these being lined up against us.

  ‘M1919 chain-belt bullet-feed-stacks around five-hundred rounds per minute. Been around since 1919. But it’s still a timeless classic, and deadly.’

  Having browsed the photographs, the room has gone quiet again. Everyone undoubtedly thinking much the same as me. Fuck.

  007 continues. ‘Questions?’

  As usual, I have.

  ‘You say you’ve taken down places like this before? How did you do it, and can we copy that?’

  ‘We have, but previously we’ve had someone helping from inside, even if it was just giving us the layout and an idea of the numbers and armaments we would be up against.’

  ‘But we don’t have that in this case?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘How about aerial surveillance? Can we get a drone over there?’

  007 thought about that for a moment before saying we can, but it would likely give the show away if spotted.

  Jerry suggests we use one of the newer drones with night-vision and infra-red heat-detectors.

  Something we all quickly agree is a good idea.

 
; 007 then suggests that we get set up for a fly-over that night and reconvene the following day to review what we learn.

  As the meeting wraps up, 007 asks me if I would like to join him for coffee? I assume he means for us to use Jerry’s coffee machine, but he actually means go out for a coffee.

  Having stumbled through not knowing that, hopefully without looking too thoughtless, we head for the Fifth Avenue Coffee Company. A place where I know we can sit outside under an umbrella and watch the world go by.

  007 is a good four or five inches taller than me, but about the same age, mid-thirties. I can see he’s probably clean shaven every morning, but by mid-afternoon his dark growth is prominent, leaving a strangely clean-cut line between dark growth and fresh skin down either side of his face. Dark eyes, almost black. Dark hair cut not quite crewcut level, but he would still pass morning inspection in the ranks.

  I actually think he would pass most women’s inspection with flying colors. Maybe James Bond isn’t such a bad name for him after all.

  When we have our coffees and are settled outside, we swap a little casual stuff about our personal lives. I confirm for him that I’m Native American and raised on the reservation up beside Fort Myers. That I studied criminal psychology and started my career down in the Miami Sheriff’s office.

  In turn, he tells me he’s Boston born and raised in a small town to the West called Acton. Has studied law and passed his bar exams, only to decide he doesn’t want to practice law. He wants to enforce it. He joined the DEA ten years ago, and is working out of the Atlanta division, but is thinking about applying for a change. Doesn’t know to where.

  The thing neither of us mentions is that we’re both single and unattached. I suspect he’s as aware of the assumption as I am.

  Inevitably, we start talking about the upcoming conflict with the SCG. He admits that it’s quite a daunting prospect. He went up in my opinion. In my experience, guys rarely admit their fears. Stupid. Everybody has them. Why wouldn’t you admit it?

  Checking the time, I see it’s virtually five. We’ve been talking for the best part of two hours and haven’t noticed. I’ve enjoyed that, and on the way back to the office when he asks if I would like to have dinner with him the following night, this time I don’t hesitate.

  At the car park, he heads off, leaving me to skip up the stairs wondering why life is suddenly so much more fun.

  38

  Having had extra playtime, I’m feeling guilty, so make for the conference room to catch up with the team. I have another couple of thoughts about the case in my mind and need to follow up with the case files.

  Jamie and Dene have moved the investigation on in my absence. I think there’s more to this delegation thing than I’ve previously realized.

  It’s Jamie who explains their findings.

  ‘We looked through the articles for who was in the press for that one-year timeframe when Charlie was in Junior High. We found all eight of the victims. The first is Laurence Spencer up in Tallahassee. As we already know, he was a porter at a place called Cedar Ridge Academy. What we didn’t know is that this is an all-girls boarding school for troubled-teens.’

  ‘And is where Charlie spent her first year?’

  ‘Exactly. While she was there, the local Sheriff took him in when two girls made complaints against him over separate incidents. They didn’t charge him as both accusations ended up with the - he said, she said - problem, and there were no independent witnesses. Charlie disappeared from the school at the end of the third term just after they found Spencer dead in his on-campus apartment.’

  ‘Victim number one?’

  ‘Looks that way. After that, we found similar accusations against all of the people on Charlie’s kill list, with only the two convictions. The rest all failed to even reach trial, usually on technicalities.’

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘We now know why she picked these particular men?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Outstanding work, Dene. You too, Jamie.’

  Turning to Kathy, I ask for confirmation that she has our local Jon Smiths safely protected for the time being.

  ‘All three,’ she assures me.

  ‘But now, thanks to this excellent work Dene and Jamie have done, we know which one is at risk, don’t we?’

  ‘Sure do,’ said Dene. ‘We can take the protection details from the other two.’

  ‘I’ll go do that now,’ says Kathy, leaving the room.

  ‘So, another detail I would like to look at,’ I say. ‘The knife being used. What do we know about that?’

  Jamie answers. ‘Got that one covered, Sammy. It’s always been the same. The Medical Examiners all describe it as a Stanley knife or blade. Thin and razor sharp.’

  ‘It would have to be,’ adds Dene.

  ‘Why’s that?’ I ask.

  ‘Think about how she gets close to her victims. Initially, when she was in her early teens, she would use innocence and allow them to think they were in charge. They would entice her back to their apartments and start sexual advances. They might talk her into stripping, if not naked, at least to her underwear….’

  ‘…she would have nowhere to hide a knife!’ I finish. ‘Brilliant, Dene. I think you’re probably right. Although the same problem exists, even if it’s a Stanley Knife. She still must conceal a naked blade somehow.’

  Dene keeps going. ‘I think that innocence approach makes sense for her earlier victims, but am not sure it works so well as she becomes older.’

  Then Jamie points out that if you consider the poor nutrition she's been suffering while living on the streets, combined with the under-developed body we saw in Pamela Wilson’s video, she would still look young enough to be innocent, even at fifteen, or even eighteen.’

  ‘And that innocence is her bait?’ I conclude.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘We need to show her picture to Jon Smith.’

  ‘I’ll do that. I’m the one who spoke with this particular Jon Smith a few days ago,’ Dene replies.

  ‘So, we now know who the killer is. Why she’s killing. Why she has chosen her victims and how she kills them. As well as the identity of her remaining target. All we need to do now is find her. Any ideas, anyone?’

  ‘We have an update on the artist’s impression, aged to look nineteen. We’re planning on releasing that to every law enforcement agency in the County today.’

  ‘Good. Anything else?’

  ‘How about a public appeal?’ suggests Jamie. ‘You know - Have you seen this girl? If so, contact us immediately.’

  ‘What are you thinking? Press or television?’ I ask.

  ‘How about both?’ said Dene. ‘We don’t have any leads, so we need all the help we can get.’

  ‘We would need to staff-up to receive calls,’ I say.

  ‘Some lads will be more than happy with the overtime, if you can get it approved,’ answers Dene.

  ‘Okay,’ I agree. ‘I’ll take it to the Sheriff. In the meantime, can I just ask that you communicate all of our findings to each of the Counties involved. I want them kept with us on this entire case.’

  ‘Another couple of things,’ adds Dene. ‘First, the fact that Charlie uses a naked Stanley blade should rule her out for the Pamela Wilson killing. In that case, the killer used a standard kitchen knife and left it at the scene.’

  ‘Good thinking, Dene,’ I tell him. ‘You said a couple of things. What else?’

  ‘You’ll like this one. After the success Jimi had going back through Pamela Wilson’s computer, I thought it might be worthwhile having another look through all the evidence we took from her apartment. When I was looking through her dominatrix outfits, I noticed a hollow tubular fold of material at the back of the nurse’s uniform. It was roughly around eight inches long and an inch in diameter. On a hunch, I checked her other outfits, and they all had the same. All empty, until I looked at her faux-leather catsuit. And guess what I found?’

  At this he holds up a clear plastic evidence
bag with a knife in it. A stiletto knife.

  ‘The murder weapon used to kill Mark Jason?’ I ask.

  ‘That would be my guess. I wanted to show you first, but now I’ll take it to Forensics and ask them to confirm Mark’s blood is present.’

  ‘So. She carried the stiletto for protection while she was doing her dominatrix thing?’ I suggest.

  ‘Yes. And if you recall, eBay sold this stiletto nearly ten years ago, which ties into when we think her dominatrix career started.’

  ‘Well done again, Dene. More excellent work. I need to tell the Sheriff. He’ll want to know that we’ve found who killed Detective Mark Jason. As soon as you have confirmation from Forensics, let me know.’

  After this, I call the Sheriff’s secretary who tells me he’s out of town for the afternoon. I make an appointment for the next morning at nine sharp. That will give me some time to prepare my case for involving the press and the public on the hunt for Charline Ellis. I don’t think I’ll have trouble convincing him, but it always pays to go in there prepared. I’ll also use Dan as a testing ground before-hand.

  I can tell him about the stiletto at the same time. That should close Mark Jason’s case. No prosecution. No further costs. A real budget saver.

  Checking the time, I decide to quit for the night. Another walk home in the dark. At least this time I’m not hungry. As well as afternoon coffee, 007 had sprung for a Cannoli - made the classic Sicilian way. Fried pastry tubes filled with ricotta cheese, mixed peel and chocolate. Very rich, and very filling. Before I leave, I remember that Trace has asked me to call and tell her when I’m about to head for home, so I do just that. I ask if she’s cooking again, and she tells me she’s hoping I will order-in. I ask what she wants and take her order for a pizza with chorizo topping.