An Unkindness of Ravens

by European P. Douglas

  “Yes,” he said then, “I can do that.”

  “Thanks man, I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  The ending was something of a bringdown for Tyler. He’d not been allowed to come close to Spekler, though he felt a handshake of thanks was in order. It hadn’t been allowed, and a simple wave and a ‘see you later’ had to suffice. Tyler was thinking that ‘later’ was going to be when Spekler was going to die and he was sure Spekler was thinking the same thing.

  Chapter 42

  For many hours, techs at the FBI Academy had been sifting through the telephone records of Karl Stanver and Des Roche. It was clear that the killer had been able to use dummy hook-ups to relay the calls locally and hide within the phone records. Now they had approximate dates from Stanver they were able to do a more thorough search and were finding connections from other states in the mix. It looked like the killer was getting around, constantly on the move. Perhaps he lived in a camper van? Was this where he committed the murders? It was possible.

  Sarah was excited by the prospect of this, thinking it something tangible. The techs running the phone searches didn’t know whose records they were looking through, and now Sarah was going to some different people to look at toll crossings and road camera footage for camper vans in the areas in question- it was imperative no one knew what was going on. To this end, Des Roche had not yet been consulted about his dealings with the killer but there was a search for family members of his who might be hostage somewhere. His mother and a sister were still unaccounted for. Sarah could feel the net beginning to close in, but she was far from getting her hopes up yet.

  It felt bad that she had to keep Tyler out of the loop and she only hoped he thought their deal was still active and wasn’t holding out anything on her. He would be rightly pissed if this all came out, but then this was her job. She shouldn’t have been sharing information with him in the first place, useful as it had been.

  Something else was troubling Sarah too. Something much worse than hurt feelings or perceived betrayals. Taking the list of places where calls had been made to Des Roche and Stanver, Sarah asked a young agent, only a couple of months graduated, called Amina to look into murders and missing persons in those areas. Sarah had a sick feeling Amina was going to come back with a long list.

  “I’ll get back to you on this as fast as I can,” Amina said eagerly and Sarah could tell she was hoping to impress. She wondered if she herself had been the same when she was fresh out of the academy.

  “Thanks, just make sure you keep this to yourself. I’m the only person who should know what you are doing with this and I’m the only person you report what you find to, OK?” Sarah saw the thrill of conspiracy in Amina’s eyes and the young woman nodded,

  “No problem,” she said taking the list and heading for her work station. Sarah watched her go with an ill feeling in her heart. She knew what would be found.

  Three hours later Amina was standing at Sarah’s desk with a manila envelope in her hands and wearing an expression of stifling a smile.

  “Here you go,” she said and Sarah could feel the urge Amina had to tell her what was in the file.

  “Good job,” Sarah said taking the envelope. “Now remember, you don’t tell anyone what you were working on.”

  “No, definitely not.” Amina lingered a moment and then knew it was time to leave. Sarah felt a little bad in doing this, but she didn’t want the young woman to see her reaction when she read the pages within. She took a breath and tipped the contents out onto the desk.

  It was horrifying to see. In each of the places suspect calls had originated, there was at least one unsolved murder and one missing person. In some of the places that number was even higher. Sarah felt her heart sink at the thought of this. While she was running around the Virginia/Maryland area after these ghosts Des Roche and Stanver, the real killer- who by now she was fully convinced was Dwight Spalding- had been roving about killing with impunity and taking hostages without ever raising an eyelid all over America. Was there even a ‘John the Baptist’ or would he turn out to be simply another puppet- only a more skilled one- like the others so far? What a merry dance this was turning into!

  There was nothing Sarah could do but to bring this to the attention of her superiors. If ever there was going to be a shitstorm at the FBI, this was going to be it. Bobrick wasn’t in his office but Daniels was and his face soured when he saw Brightwater in his doorway with the envelope under her arm. He put his head in his hands and then said,

  “What is it this time, Brightwater?” Sarah entered the room and closed the door behind her.

  “This thing is much bigger than we thought it was, Sir,” she said.

  “How?”

  “We’ve looked into the calls made to both Stanver and Roche, tracing them to many different origin points all over the country,” Sarah said pausing a little here as she wondered what way to say this best.

  “And?” Daniels asked sourly.

  “There’s a chance, a very strong chance, the person who made those kill Elizabeth Barker has been killing and abducting people all over at the same time.”

  “How many are we talking about here?” he asked.

  “Twelve murders and we’re looking into thirty disappearances.” Sarah waited for the reaction.

  “What!” Daniels spoke with such force it seemed to lift him to his feet. “Those numbers are insane- they can’t be right!” Sarah didn’t say anything to agree with this. “Aren't any other law enforcement agencies talking to one another?”

  “The murders are all different and the abductions are mostly missing person cases right now.”

  “So how do we know it’s all the same guy?”

  “We don’t, it’s just very circumstantial they all happened in the same places and around the same timeframe as the calls to Stanver and Roche.”

  “Circumstantial my ass!” he shouted, “I want some real evidence, get someone on this, someone already in the field out wherever this is going on!” Sarah baulked at this,

  “This is my case!” she said.

  “Yes, but we need agents on the ground now, as of this moment!”

  “Sir,” Sarah said slowly, “With respect, we need to move carefully on this. If news gets out at the very least Megan Stanver would be in much greater danger of being murdered.” Daniels looked at her a moment and if she didn’t know better, she would have thought it was pure hatred that came from his eyes. He sat down, more slumped than eased.

  “I’ll call some people I can trust and get a limited team on it,” he said after a moment of staring into space.

  “Can you direct them to report directly to me?” she asked and then added, “Or to you, through me, Sir?” She stepped forward as she spoke and handed the envelope to him. He didn’t answer her, opened it and looked over the pages. Sarah took a series of slow steps backwards until she was nearly at the door again while he did this.

  “We are working on a theory he may be using a motorhome to get around. I have some people looking for evidence of this through roads cameras and toll CCTV,” she went on. He nodded at least at this.

  “I really hope you’re wrong on all this,” he said handing the envelope of papers back to her, “But I wouldn't bet on it.” She felt the urge to say sorry, but managed to hold it. What did she have to be sorry about, after all?

  “Should I report to SAIC Bobrick?” she asked.

  “No you just keep working on all this. I’ll break the good news to the boss man,” Daniels said.

  Sarah was glad to get out of there, and also that she was not going to be one to tell Bobrick about the ever growing case. He was sure to hit the roof about that.

  Sitting at her own desk very soon after, she thought of her file at home, could see the words, ‘The Monster' written on it. She knew Dwight Spalding was behind all of this. What part he wanted for her, and how it was all going to end was all that remained to be seen.

  Chapter 43

  It felt
good to be home. As fantastic as some parts of California are, the prison and the inn where Tyler stayed are not on the usual lists of places to visit. It was raining and windy when he stepped off the plane and it only got worse on his drive back home. He wanted to talk to Sarah, but he thought he better check in with Danny first - see if there was anything new he didn’t know about yet.

  “You're back!” Danny said in place of a greeting. (Tyler had decided to keep using his own phone for most calls so if anyone was listening in they wouldn’t realise what he was doing).

  “Sure am,” Tyler said, “What am I coming back to, though?” he asked.

  “Nothing much since you left - that you don’t know about.”

  “Anything at all?”

  “Nothing in the press,” Danny said and there was something in his tone that made Tyler aware he’d been following someone again.

  “What’s not in the press, that I should know?” he asked.

  “Agent Brightwater went down to see Karl Stanver in the middle of the night, but there was nothing about it in any of the papers or websites,” Danny said. Tyler’s first instinct was that this news would be on the blog soon.

  “How long was she in the jail with Stanver?”

  “A few hours.” So it was something big enough, Tyler thought. Sarah wouldn’t have gone down there in the middle of the night without cause, so it stood to reason Stanver must have requested to talk to her. And if that was the case, then it stood to reason it was because he wanted to tell her something. Something which she thought so important to her case that she couldn't mention it, and hence, the silence in the papers. Perhaps Sarah was the only person in the world who knew what was going on. Tyler was going to check in with his informant at the FBI and in the local PDs, but he didn't expect to find anything out. This would have been news already if they knew. It also meant Sarah was holding out on him. To be expected, he supposed. He would call and give her one chance to come clean.

  “I see,” he said to Danny and then changed the subject, “You finding any more connections in the stories for the file?”

  “It’s just getting bigger and bigger,” Danny said, which Tyler took for a no.

  “It will do that, and then when you least expect it, something will jump out at you and there’s your lead.”

  Tyler ended the phone call to Danny with more questions than answers, but he knew where he needed to call next to remedy that. He took out the disposable cell phone and called Sarah on her one. It rang for a long time and he didn’t think she was going to answer. He’d found it hard to get in contact with her over the last days and now he had at least some clue as to why. As he was about to hang up, her voice came over the phone.

  “Yeah?” she said.

  “Hey, I’m back in town, well, the East Coast anyway.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Well,” he said, and he toyed with telling her what Spekler had said about Dwight Spalding. All in good time, though. “What’s the big hubbub over at FBI and Petersburg with Stanver?” he asked.

  “How did you hear about that?” Sarah’s voice was sharp and cold, and Tyler knew at once this was something really serious.

  “You tell me and I’ll tell you?” he teased.

  “Tyler, this is more serious than anything so far in this case. I’ll arrest you myself and turn us both in if you don’t tell me what you know and how you know about this.” There was no doubting what she said was the truth. It must be even bigger than Tyler had guessed.

  “Alright, alright,” he said, “I don’t actually know anything other than you went to Petersburg in the middle of the night. The rest I pieced together myself.”

  “What rest?”

  “Well, the only reason you would have gone there in the middle of the night was because Stanver requested it as he wanted to tell you something important. The fact that it hasn’t leaked yet only goes to show how important it really is. There must be like, only five people who actually know what’s going on right now, am I right?”

  “How did you know I went to Petersburg?” he could tell she was in no mood for bullshit.

  “My intern followed you,” he conceded.

  “What?” she shouted. “Who the hell is your intern? Did you tell him to spy on me?”

  “Whoa, hold on a second, no I didn’t tell him to spy on you, but he’s an investigative journalist in training and this is the kind of thing you do to get ahead in our business!”

  “What else does he know?”

  “Nothing, and he’s not experienced enough yet to piece together the gravity of this like I did.”

  “Only you and him know this information?” she asked after a pause in which he felt she was trying to calm herself down.

  “Yes,” he answered and then there was another long pause. “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?” he asked. The silence was too long,

  “I can’t, Tyler, not this time.” He was angry at this, but he didn’t want her to know this. He swiped the phone in the air like he was bashing off something and bit his lip and mouthed ‘FUCK!’

  “Do you want me to tell you what Spekler said about Spalding?” he said, speaking with a level tone.

  “You know I do,” Sarah said, “but I still can’t tell you what’s going on here.”

  “I understand that,” he said, thinking any information that came his way soon was not going to be shared with her either.

  “OK then, what did he say?”

  “He said he met Spalding once, while they were both still active. Spalding grabbed him in the street and complimented his ‘work.’ This was before anyone knew who Spekler was.”

  “What?” Sarah’s startled voice betrayed her shock. “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know, and Spekler didn’t know either. He said it only lasted a few seconds, but even he was nervous with Spalding. He said he could feel the evil coming off him. I think he was scared.”

  “Jesus!” she said, and he knew what she was likely thinking. How long after Spalding had killed her mother had this meeting taken place? Spekler was arrested around that same time after all. “Did he know anything else about him?” she asked.

  “No, that was it,” Tyler said, knowing it would be enough for Sarah to go ploughing through old files from the time from the FBI and Californian Police Departments.

  “You must have a good story to write from the interviews?”

  “Yes, I think the paper is going to do well out of this,” he said, “I got the idea of writing a book on serial killers while I was there. I'm thinking there are other killers in custody that might want to talk to me, especially after the story of these interviews comes out.”

  “Sounds like a nice business we could have going. I catch them, put them behind bars, you interview them, we sell the book and split the profits,” her voice was softer now.

  “Imagine it was so easy,” he smiled. Then thinking said, “If there is any bone you can throw me on what’s going on, you know how to reach me, and if I hear anything solid, I’ll let you know right away.”

  “OK, thanks Tyler.”

  Chapter 44

  When Sarah got into work the next morning, she was dismayed to find a yellow post it on her screen telling her to go straight to SAIC Bobrick’s office before doing anything else. She leaned down to turn on her computer to find another post it saying ‘Even turning on your computer!’ She pulled it off and crumpled it into a ball angrily. She pressed the button for the computer to start up and made her way to her boss’s office.

  The door was open and Sarah knocked on the glass around the outside of the frame.

  “Come in, Brightwater,” he said without looking up. “Close the door,” he added and Sarah didn’t like this at all. She did as he bid and then stood before him.

  “I’m coming straight to the chase on this for you, Brightwater,” he said, “You’ve done great work on this case so far, and exposing what’s been going on in the other states has been big for us, but I’m pulling
you from any involvement with the cases outside the ‘Baptist’ murders as of right now.”

  “What?” Sarah cried, “You can’t do that, Sir...”

  “I am doing that, Agent,” he snapped back to this. Sarah knew she was going to have be more diplomatic if she wanted any chance to continue working on this.

  “They are all the same case,” she said softly, “It’s just bigger now.”

  “And that’s why I’m breaking it up into smaller caseloads,” he said. “You will still be working on our man in Virginia and the surrounding States.” He made it sound as though this was some kind of concession to her, but all Sarah could feel was punishment.

  “I can’t investigate half a case,” she said and her anger was mounting.

  “Well, you’re going to have to learn!” he said sharply.

  “This is ridiculous!” Sarah burst out, not noticing her anger had boiled over now, “I’ve earned this case. If it wasn’t for me, we wouldn't even know there was a case!”

  “That’s been noted,” he said like a scolding father.

  “But I need to find out what’s been going on in the other states! It’s all tied in together. I don’t know how, but Spalding has managed to weave everything into one and...”

  “Spalding?” Bobrick said. Sarah could feel the death knell in this. “Who said anything about Dwight Spalding?” He was looking at her with very focused and angry eyes. For a moment Sarah didn’t say anything, couldn't think of anything to say to save the moment.

  “I...” it was pointless.

  “Is that what all this anger is about?” Bobrick said, “You think the man who murdered your mother is responsible for these crimes?” All she could do was look down at his desk; she had doomed herself and she knew it. Bobrick sighed and the creak on his chair sang out as he leaned back. “This decision has already been made,” he said. “My advice to you is to bring in ‘John the Baptist’ and we can see where things stand then.” Sarah nodded and glanced at him.