The Mile Marker Murders

by C. W. Saari

  “I want you so badly, Ty. Let me feel you now.” Robin guided him to that moist pleasure spot and rocked her hips upward to meet his thrusts. They rode waves of pleasure Bannister had only imagined. As black stars exploded before his eyes, Robin let out a loud, prolonged moan. Her legs wrapped themselves around his back as her arms pulled him deep inside her. She held him so tightly he almost couldn’t breathe.

  He lay there on top of her, still inside, for a long time. Their hearts were beating hard as their chests rose and fell as one, their warm glistening bodies entwined. As he softly rolled to her side, he heard a quiet whimper, then another, and then Robin started sobbing. He kissed salty tears flowing down her cheeks.

  “You’re wonderful,” was all he could think of saying.

  “Oh, Ty, I’ve dreamed of being with you like this.” She placed her fingers across his lips. “Don’t say anything. Just hold me.” He gathered her into his arms and hugged her gently.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you,” Bannister said finally. “I hope the New Year is starting off the way you wanted,” he added. “It is for me.”

  “I’m just so happy. I couldn’t wait to see you again. I never told you this, but on that first day when you came to Global Waters and looked at me, and spoke to me, I thought, this guy is sexy and would be great to go out with.”

  “So why’d you wait a year to go out with me?”

  “Me, wait! I practically had to take out an ad for you to ask me out.” Robin lightly punched his arm, then hungrily kissed him again, harder and harder as her hand reached below and they both shared an urgency to explore each other’s body again.

  Some time later he got up, returning with two of the hotel’s thick white terry cloth robes and their neglected flutes of champagne. As they finished their drinks, they heard fireworks exploding in the indigo sky over DC.

  “It’s midnight,” Bannister said. “Happy New Year, Robin.” He kissed her. “Do you want to get up and watch the fireworks?” he asked.

  “Maybe later. I’d rather see you get up and help me feel the fireworks again.” Her smile was inviting as she wrapped her arms around him once again.

  Andre followed certain foreign customs, like making New Year’s resolutions. Two weeks ago, he had made a resolution that would be checked off his list tonight.

  Sparky Gillespie seemed surprised to be getting a phone call so soon from Andre Neff. He told Andre that unlike his work with the Toys for Tots program, his food bank efforts went on throughout the year. He was delighted to get a jump start on contributions for January and February, the two coldest months in the DC area. He and Andre agreed to meet at Armand’s Chicago Pizzeria on Wisconsin Avenue at 8:00 p.m. Sparky had given Andre his cell phone number and told him to call him when he got there.

  Andre had already stopped by the Rezidentura at the Russian Embassy, where an intelligence technician had signed out an untraceable cell phone to him. After driving around Washington for an hour to make sure no one was following him, he parked in the back of a bank parking lot next to the pizza restaurant. He looked over and saw Sparky’s vehicle pull into the adjoining lot, taking one of the two empty spaces on the side. Another car pulled into the remaining space next to Sparky.

  Andre called him.

  “I’m at Armands,” said Sparky. “Where are you?”

  “I’m next door in the bank lot. It’s empty, and the restaurant spaces were filled when I got here. Do you want me to drive over there so I can unload this food?” Andre waited to see if Sparky would take the bait.

  He did. “Let’s make it easier on both of us,” Sparky said. “I’ll drive over to the back of the bank.”

  “Great. After we unload this stuff, I’ll buy you a pizza and pitcher of beer. How’s that sound?”

  “For free beer, you’ve got my attention,” Sparky said.

  Andre had scouted out the parking lot the week before. He knew the only exterior surveillance camera the bank had was the one trained on the ATM and teller machines on the right side. He would drive out the left side, the same way he came in.

  Sparky backed his Ford Explorer next to Andre’s car. Andre popped his trunk and both men stepped to the rear. Sparky looked down at two open cardboard boxes filled with canned vegetables.

  “Sparky, do you mind giving me a hand with these boxes? I don’t know if the bottoms are strong enough.” Andre pointed inside the trunk.

  “Not a problem,” Sparky said as he reached into the trunk.

  Just then Sparky felt all his muscles pulsing and going into spasm. He lost his balance and fell forward toward the trunk. His head struck the trunk latch of Andre’s car. His limp arm crumpled as his shoulder struck the wheel well. He saw Andre smiling and felt his legs being pushed into the trunk. Sparky saw the hypodermic in Andre’s gloved hand just before he felt a hot burning sensation in the side of his neck. He wanted to scream, but couldn’t move his mouth. His hands and arms wouldn’t work. His face scraped the carpet on the bottom of the trunk. The last thing Sparky saw was the orange and yellow neon sign of the pizzeria before the lid closed and his world turned dark.

  In less than thirty seconds, one of DIA’s unselfish public servants was lying unconscious in the trunk of Andre’s car.

  Andre took Sparky’s keys and drove his Ford Explorer back to the pizzeria, parking it in the rear of the restaurant where the employees’ vehicles were located. He pulled his Washington Redskins ski cap down over his forehead and got out of the car. After locking the doors, he casually walked to the front of the restaurant. No one bothered looking at him. Two minutes later he was in his own car headed toward downtown DC. He crossed over the 14th Street Bridge into Arlington and fifteen minutes later turned off the interstate and followed the now familiar road to the storage locker.

  After lifting Sparky Gillespie’s body out of the trunk and placing it onto a plastic drop cloth, Andre stripped the body. He was surprised to find Sparky wearing two identical Seiko watches. One read 9:05 p.m.; the other read 5:05 a.m. Why two watches? Then it occurred to him: Sparky was an intelligence analyst. The second watch showed current Moscow time. Well, Sparky wouldn’t need either one now. He rolled several loops of plastic around the body and lifted it back into the trunk.

  Andre had planned Sparky’s next stop in advance. The route included two areas where motorists could pull off the road, and two rest areas. Andre stopped at all four spots to make sure he didn’t have a tail. He didn’t use his previous dump site—though he had considered it, just to flaunt it at the investigators. The new location was in Maryland, past the Patuxent Research Refuge and about two miles from the headquarters of the National Security Agency. He turned off Bald Eagle Drive to the three-mile Wildlife Loop. He didn’t expect any other vehicles on this back road.

  When he saw the familiar mile marker, he pulled over. He cut the engine and listened for any sounds. There were none. Andre slid on the oversized pair of work boots he’d bought at a local Wal-Mart. He dragged the bound plastic roll containing Sparky’s naked, but still-warm body across the bare dirt ground of a small clearing. He unrolled his victim. Blank eyes now stared upward at the tar black sky.

  Andre carried the plastic back to his car and placed it and the boots in a garbage bag to discard later in a trash dumpster he’d used before.

  Walking to the conference room for the Friday briefing, Bannister took a call. It was Robin.

  “Ty, you’re very sweet. Thank you for the roses.”

  “I knew you had a big test this week, and I think today’s the day you’re supposed to get your orders.”

  “You’re right. I’m so excited. When the flowers came, I had to stare at the card that came with them for just a moment . . . I was thinking, who is Secret Service Agent Frank Horrigan? But then it hit me—Frank Horrigan was Clint Eastwood’s character in The Line of Fire! Tricky. But I loved it.”

  “If someone would have recognized my name on the delivery card, it would have set the rumors flying. I wasn’t sure if you were
ready for that.”

  “So, the flowers were because of the excitement of this week?” Robin asked.

  “Let’s say they were for the excitement of last weekend.”

  “They’re beautiful. The other female trainees think I’ve got a secret admirer. Hey! Guess where I’m being assigned to my first office?”

  “No idea.”

  “Washington, DC. Isn’t that great?”

  “There’s really good work here, Robin.”

  “Oh, I know. I’m on a high right now. I nailed that exam yesterday, and combined with my orders and your flowers—I don’t know what to say. I do know I can’t wait to see you again.”

  “Me, too. Keep plugging away. I’ll call you soon.”

  Bannister hung up as he walked into the conference room and grabbed a seat near the middle of the table. The other task force guys filed in behind him.

  Doug Gordon asked Otis Huggins for an update on surveillance from the funerals.

  “We had excellent video coverage of the church and graveside services for all three victims. The service for Wells was small. Everyone has been identified. The services for DiMatteo and Williamson were heavily attended. Only one couple at DiMatteo’s service is still unidentified; thirteen people in the church for Williamson’s service are unknown.”

  “Have you made photos of the unsubs yet?” Spencer Crum asked.

  “We have multiple sets. Of the unknown subjects at Williamson’s service, four males fit the profile. However, two were there together and might be lifestyle partners. I based that on the fact that they were holding hands.” Huggins grinned widely, showing his gold tooth.

  “What about the other two?”

  “I’ve got copies of their photos for each of you,” Huggins said.

  Trooper Bell asked about vehicle coverage.

  “I was getting to that,” Huggins added, hesitating. “We screwed up. We didn’t film the cars, just noted their tag numbers. In hindsight, we should have filmed the vehicles. One of the Maryland tags taken from a vehicle at Williamson’s service came back as stolen. It wasn’t reported until two days later, but was a ‘hit’ by the time we ran the plates. We already queried the surveillance teams. No one remembers it.”

  “The bottom line,” Gordon said sarcastically, “is that maybe the killer was at Williamson’s service.” No one spoke for a moment.

  “Sergeant Bell has a rundown on storage lockers,” Gordon said.

  “As you recall,” Bell said, “something that’s bothered us is that we don’t know where Williamson’s Infiniti was stashed before it showed up at Dulles Airport. We made the assumption it wasn’t hidden at an apartment lot, and the killer would not have risked putting it in his own garage. That leaves us with the probability it was in a storage unit for a week or so.”

  “And there’s a shitpot full of them,” Quattrone said.

  “Exactly. Not counting vertical storage facilities like Public Storage, we identified 168 businesses within thirty-five miles of downtown DC. The key criterion we looked at was that you had to be able to drive a vehicle up to the rental locker, or be able to drive a vehicle into it.”

  “How far did you get with that?” Gordon asked.

  “Right now, we’re checking the name of Andre LNU (last name unknown) against all rental records and will match the Andre rentals to exterior lockers large enough to conceal a car.”

  “Ty, what have we got from State Department and the airlines?” Gordon asked.

  “I’ll let Steve go first,” Bannister said.

  “I handled liaison with State, and Ty covered the airlines. Wells got an e-mail from Andre LNU saying he was in Moscow but would be arriving in D.C in three weeks. Sometime during the fourth week after that e-mail, Wells disappeared. We’re operating under the assumption that Andre, if he is the killer, flew into the United States during that time frame and has been here since then. Ty, give them the numbers,” Quattrone said.

  “Sure. We focused only on the airports in New York, Newark, Washington, and Baltimore. Steve concentrated on foreign nationals. I handled US citizens. First we looked at the total number of ‘Andres’ who flew into the United States last January. Then we determined how many are still here. We compared their bios against Quantico’s profile, which looked at single white males between 38-48 years old. There were still fifty-one possibles. We then cross-checked those names with the CIA’s databases to find out how many either entered or departed from Vienna in the last three years. We ended up with five.”

  “That’s a manageable number. Anything else, Ty?” Gordon asked just as a huge thunderclap sounded, and a pounding, driving rain mixed with hail slammed into the conference room windows. The lights flickered but stayed on.

  “We’re pulling out all the stops on the fifty-one possibles. However, I made a call to one of my fraternity brothers assigned to Vienna for the last three years. He’s an outstanding tennis player. I asked him to check with his sources for good tennis players whose first name is Andre. He came up with two. Both happen to be in DC. Andre Deverville, a French national, works at the World Bank, and Andre Kuznetsov is a reporter assigned to the TASS News Agency here in DC. Kuznetsov, by the way, is also on the Russian Embassy’s roster with the rank of Second Secretary. Both guys were in Vienna when Lillian Wells and her husband were there.”

  As Otis Huggins excused himself to take a call, Gordon continued. “We’re making progress. Let’s see if we can get good photos of Deverville and Kuznetsov, and compare them to the unsubs at the funeral services. We need to keep pushing. We want to get this guy before he strikes again.”

  “We may be too late, Doug,” Otis Huggins said as he walked back into the conference room. “My commander just called. The mother of a DIA analyst filed a missing person’s report this afternoon. Her son never called her last night as he always does. He didn’t answer his phone this morning. A call to DIA confirmed he never showed up to work.”

  “Well, there may be an innocent explanation to that,” Gordon said as they all turned to look at him.

  “Yeah, but the DIA people said this guy hasn’t missed a day of work, sick or otherwise, in three years.”

  Doug Gordon called an emergency meeting of the task force Sunday afternoon. Gordon showed up wearing his customary white shirt with tie, while the rest of the team were still in their weekend clothes. “Some of you may have gotten my page while in church, and I’m sorry about the short notice,” Gordon began. “Three hours ago, Otis Huggins took a call from one of his buddies with the Maryland State Police.”

  Huggins nodded.

  “Early this morning a body was discovered at a nature preserve a few miles from NSA Headquarters at Fort Meade. An elderly couple, up early to see if they could photograph some kind of bird they were looking for, spotted the nude body of a male at Patuxent Wildlife Refuge.”

  “Is it the DIA guy?” Steve Quattrone asked.

  “There’s a good chance it is. A trooper in the area was the first responder. His initial description said the body was a white male, approximately thirty years old, with red hair and a birthmark on his forehead.”

  “That matches the description we have of Sparky Gillespie,” Otis Huggins said.

  “Any jewelry on the body?” Bannister asked.

  “Yeah. Two watches,” Gordon said. “Gillespie’s supervisor at DIA gave us a description and said the guy had a couple of quirks. He always wore two watches so he’d always know the correct time in Moscow.” Gordon let that sink in. He leaned forward, putting both hands on the end of the table. “AFIS should be able to match his prints before we’re out of this meeting. I think we should assume our killer has struck again.”

  “Will the victim being in Maryland complicate things?” Spencer Crum asked.

  “We’ll factor that in. Since the body was found in a national park, we dispatched an evidence recovery team from our Baltimore office. Our team and officers from the Anne Arundel Sheriff’s Office have been there for two hours. The road into the are
a is sealed off. A metro reporter for the Baltimore Sun is the only one making calls about a possible murder victim. He’s been given the ‘no comment’ comment.”

  Looking at Bannister, Gordon said, “I’d like you and Quattrone to meet Gillespie’s supervisor at DIA at four o’clock. So far, he’s only been told we’re working the missing person angle. But the possibility of espionage has probably popped into his head.”

  Gordon saw everyone was staring in his direction. “Let’s go around the table. If you’ve got anything new since Friday, share it. If you have anything you want to ask, fire away.” He pointed at Steve Quattrone, who was sitting closest to him.

  “Are they still cutting the heat back in this building on the weekends? It’s freezing in here,” Quattrone said, hearing a quiet “Hooahh” response from one of the guys.

  Quattrone pulled out a stack of photos. “My contact at the Office of Foreign Missions obtained visa photos of our two main suspects, Andre Deverville and Andre Kuznetsov. I got the photos after hours Friday, and our lab made copies yesterday. Ty and I compared them with surveillance shots from the memorial services. We think a guy sitting in the third pew from the back at Williamson’s service is the Russian. Give us your opinion.”

  Quattrone passed out the photos. The room was silent for a minute while everyone studied the pictures.

  “Looks like a make to me,” Trooper Bell said. There were no dissenters.

  “He’s a newspaper guy, right?” Huggins asked. “Maybe he was on assignment.”

  “Or he might have been operational,” Crum added.