An Unkindness of Ravens

by European P. Douglas

  “Yes, Sir,” she said. This was as close to a promise she’d be back on the wider case soon as she was going to get. She cursed herself for bringing up Spalding the way she had. The urge to explain to him crashed over her and she was speaking before she could do anything about it.

  “It’s not just wishful thinking, Sir,” she said, “I do feel sure it’s Spalding who is behind the wider picture. I don’t know how, but it’s like a sixth sense or something.”

  “Sixth sense my ass!” he said in a sardonic tone. “Give me anything real, but sixth sense has put exactly zero killers behind bars, and I’m guessing that’s the way those numbers are going to stay!” Sarah was annoyed at this, but not so much the brush off from her boss but by the fact she’d said it at all.

  “I’m going to catch ‘John the Baptist,’” she said hotly, “and when I do, I’m going to catch Dwight Spalding too!”

  “That’s what I want to hear,” he said in a voice lost somewhere between encouragement and disdain.

  “I’ll need access to other case files for this to work, though,” Sarah said, pushing her luck.

  “You don’t make a single enquiry or request about the other cases without coming to me first and you got a deal, alright?”

  “OK, Sir,” she said, “Deal.”

  “Bring ‘em in,” he said, and this time there was no mistaking the encouragement in his voice. Sarah nodded and went back to work right away.

  She spent the morning poring over the case - using great willpower not to check in on the out of state cases until later in the day. There was something she’d been missing, she knew it, but so far in her searching it had remained elusive.

  More eyes were needed on this. That was the conclusion she came to, but that had been the problem so far - too many eyes on it. An idea crossed her mind and initially she rejected it out of hand, but as the day wore on she could think of less and less reason not to try it out. She needed fresh eyes, and she needed someone who wasn’t going to leak the information. Hadn’t Tyler, and now to a lesser extent his intern, proved their trustworthiness in this regard? Couldn't they help her find what it was she was missing, something she was so sure was right under her nose?

  Was it crazy?

  Perhaps it was, but it was no crazier than having to restrict access to actual law enforcement employees who would leak any information at the first opportunity. Sarah felt she was already past the point of no return with Tyler - how much worse could it be that she shared more information with him than she already had? She was going to do it!

  Sarah spent the rest of that afternoon going through what best to start with. By the time she was ready to leave, she’d transferred quite a lot of information onto three usb drives, something that was not allowed in most cases in itself, and prepared to share these with a member of the media. How strange the world had become.

  Looking across at Malick’s empty desk she thought, not for the first time these last few days, of calling him. It wouldn't be fair to him though, or Tara. His wife was doing all she could to protect him and it would only take one call from Sarah to undo all of her work in one second. She’d sent the card and had spoken to him half groggy in the hospital on a very fast-paced visit. That would have to be enough for now. Until he was back at work. Sarah had no doubt that he’d be back. As much as Tara might want him to become a banker or store clerk or whatever, the FBI was where he belonged, and it would always be where he came back to. Sarah just hoped their marriage was going to be strong enough to survive such a thing. Tara was going to be devastated when it finally happened, and no doubt Sarah would become a scapegoat for it at some point in the near future, but that was life, wasn’t it? It goes on and on, no matter what.

  Sarah smiled at the thought of what Malick would say if he knew what she was planning to do with Tyler and his intern. It would be one thing certain to wipe the smile from his face. But as things stood, she didn’t see any other choice. She didn’t trust anyone else to get to Spalding. ‘John the Baptist’ had to go down fast for her to get her shot. It was now or never.

  Chapter 45

  When his disposable cell phone rang, Tyler was genuinely surprised. He’d not expected to hear from Sarah for another while yet. Here she was, however, calling him now, only one day after they last spoke.

  “Hey,” he said, answering.

  “Tyler, I need to see you and your intern,” Sarah said.

  “Why, what’s up?” Tyler asked, wondering if this was trouble or opportunity - or both.

  “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone, but let’s say we have to move forward quickly.” Though he was not sure at all what she was proposing, this excited him.

  “I’m in,” he said without hesitation.

  “Can you get your intern and meet me tonight, in the bar where we met?”

  “Yes, but I want to meet with you alone first,” Tyler said. He still wasn’t sure about Danny Kircheck and what he was up to, and he wanted some things to be just between Sarah and himself. Was this some kind of professional jealousy sneaking inside his head?

  “Why?” Sarah asked.

  “I’ll explain to you later,” he said. “How about we meet at seven and I’ll tell Danny to come at nine?”

  “OK, fine,” she said, her voice fast and irritated. She wanted to be off the phone he thought.

  “Great, see you then,” he said.

  When the call was ended, he thought for a moment about Danny and the work he was doing. Was it possible he was worried about being eclipsed by the younger man? Tyler didn’t think so, but it was a nagging feeling that it wasn’t just simple mistrust of someone who had shown so much aptitude for following people covertly. Tyler still didn’t know, but he was sure it had been Danny who followed him that night when he pulled in off the road. All he could do for now, he supposed, was keep an eye on Danny and only let him know what he needed to know.

  Sarah was already in the bar that evening when Tyler came in. He was twenty minutes early in the hope of scoping out the place and fixing the meeting in a seating position that suited him, but obviously Sarah had the same idea. She hadn’t seen him come in and he went to the bar and ordered a beer for both of them. She had one on the table before her and she looked very beautiful in the dim lights near the back of the room.

  “You’re early,” she said when he came to the table and put the two bottles down.

  “You’re earlier,” he said and then shuffled into the seat to the left of her. He wasn’t facing the room as he would have liked, but he had a decent view from here.

  “Why don’t you sit across from me?” she asked him.

  “I can’t see anything sitting there,” he smiled, “You know that, it’s why you're not sitting there.” Sarah smiled too.

  “So what is it you want to talk about before your intern gets here?” she asked him. Tyler looked around the room for a moment trying to think of the best way of saying this to her.

  “Well, Danny is good at what he does and he’s going to make a hell of an investigative journalist someday,” he said.

  “But?”

  “His methods are known only to himself,” Tyler smiled.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He followed Ferguson without any prompting from me, then he followed you a couple of times, also without any prompting from me.” He saw Sarah’s eyes grow wide as a smile played on her lips.

  “You don’t know if you can trust him?” she laughed.

  “Honestly, no,” Tyler smiled back and had he been capable of feeling embarrassed, his face would have grown bright red just then.

  “Are you sure you’re not just worried about him stealing your mantle?” she asked, still smiling, but he felt a tinge of seriousness in her voice.

  “That might be possible in a few years, but not yet,” he said. “I just can’t tell if he knows things he’s not telling me.”

  “You think it’s possible he has information we don’t?”

  “I don’t think so, b
ut that’s what I’m talking about. He sneaks around so well, comes up with this information just when it’s needed, and there’s no reason he should have it other than his following people.”

  “Are you getting at the idea that he might be the one behind the blog?” Sarah asked.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” Tyler said. “Everything that’s been on the blog had been accessible by him, I suppose. I even think he followed me at least once.”

  “Wow,” she said, thinking this over. He watched as she ran over in her head all the thoughts he’d had already. He knew it was possible, even if he wasn’t ready to believe it just yet.

  “I’ll have someone look deeper into his background,” Sarah said after a while. “Tell me what happened with Stewart Spekler?” she said then and for the next half hour they talked about that and then spent ten more minutes on the part about his meeting Spalding.

  When this conversation lapsed, Sarah took a deep breath and then said,

  “I’m going to fill you in on what’s going on, but you have to promise me this goes no further no matter what.” Tyler nodded, his skin tingling with anticipation. He looked at his watch and was glad Danny was not due for a time yet, even if he too decided to show up early.

  Though Tyler had been right about it being something important to the case, he had no idea it was going to be what Sarah told him. This was unprecedented as far as he knew, and this was a field he’d looked into many times before.

  “So the killing of Elizabeth Barker has nothing to do with the ‘John the Baptist’ murders,” Tyler said, “but they are linked to who knows how many other murders involving - you suspect - Dwight Spalding.” It was completely incredible, and something you wouldn't believe even happening in a movie. How long had Spalding been working on this? How long was he back active, if indeed he had ever been inactive? There were so many questions.

  “Yes,” Sarah answered, “So I have to solve ‘the Baptist’ case fast if I want to get in on the Spalding case!” She looked around in case she had said this too loud, but no one seemed to be taking any notice of her.

  “What do you want from me, then?” he asked, still shaking his head in disbelief at what was going on.

  “I want the three of us, Danny included, to crack this case as fast as we can. Between us, there must be something we can find out or something we missed. We can do this.” She sounded like a team captain giving a pep talk and he smiled.

  “We can,” he said, thinking this would also do wonders for his book sales once he’d written it.

  Danny Kircheck arrived close to nine o’clock and was sheepish when introduced to Sarah for the first time.

  “So you’re the stalker,” she said, shaking his hand, and the younger man looked to the ground in embarrassment. Tyler took the lead in telling Danny what was going on, but he chose not to mention anything about the other killings and kidnappings out of state. He simply said the FBI had evidence the Elizabeth Barker murder by Roche and Stanver was not linked to the ‘John the Baptist’ case and other agents would be looking into it. He saw Sarah look at him, but she didn’t press him on why Danny was to know so little. If they were only going to be working on the one case, Tyler felt, there was no need for him to know about the other one.

  “This all has to be so quiet,” Sarah stressed to Danny, “No one can know I’ve asked for you guys to help on this.”

  “Don't worry, Agent Brightwater,” he said in a deferential tone. “My lips are sealed. I’m just so honoured to be working on this with you both.” He went shy again at this small gushing, and Sarah and Tyler smiled at one another.

  “Don’t forget, Danny,” Tyler said, “This kind of thing getting out can do damage to us too. When you’re linked to something big that leaked, people don’t want to talk to you anymore, you understand?”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Danny nodded.

  “So we’re all screwed if this doesn't go well,” Sarah said, raising her bottle, to which they all smiled and clinked their own to hers.

  Chapter 46

  The next morning, Sarah locked herself away in the case room for the ‘John the Baptist’ murders. She pulled down the blinds and moved all the Stanver/Roche files to one side out of her way. There were four murders attributable to this killer and that was what she needed to focus on now.

  She looked over the crime scene photographs of each, scouring with a magnifying glass for any small thing that might have been overlooked. When she was done with that, she read through and listened to tonnes of interviews with friends and family of the deceased and people who were potential witnesses, looking for tones of voice or any ambiguous statements that might not have been picked up on at the time. It was hard arduous work and it drained her.

  Poring over the victims’ histories, she looked for the slightest things, the same bank or favourite coffee franchise, anything, but still she was coming up with nothing new and no fresh leads. Sarah worked through lunch and then when evening came and hunger was finally getting the better of her, she got a few bars of chocolate from a vending machine and some coffee and went straight back in on the case.

  The phone Tyler had given her sat heavy in her inside pocket, a promise from him to call her if he found out anything new at all. So far today it had remained silent. Now and then she would become aware of it and for a moment would will it to ring to save her from all this endless going through files, but it never bent to her will.

  The lights in the rest of the office went out one by one and soon she could hear the vacuuming of the night cleaning crew as they moved about the desks and offices. She knew it was late, but she didn’t want to know what time it was; that would only depress her. It was only when her sleeping head planted hard into the table having fallen from her supporting hand, that she decided it was time to call it a night. She drove home with the windows open and the music on high to keep herself more alert.

  It was more like a zombified version of herself that entered the apartment.

  At once in there, a phantom smell of Marcus’ aftershave came to her, and she broke down in tears at the moment’s hope she’d allowed herself that he might have come back. She entered the code into her beeping alarm system and slumped down with her back to the door.

  Sarah knew it was the wrong thing to do, but she took out her phone and dialled Marcus’ number, still not sure what time of night it was. To her surprise, he answered on the third ring.

  “Hello, Sarah?” he sounded sleepy, she must have woken him up.

  “Hey,” she said apologetically. “Sorry to call so late.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked and she could hear the mattress beneath him as he leaned up on one elbow, could see it in her mind.

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry for how I treated our relationship,” she said through her tears. There was silence from the other end and then Marcus said,

  “It’s alright, I know how much pressure you are constantly under,” and then almost as an aside he said, “Have you been drinking?”

  “No,” she said weakly, too tired to be offended by the question.

  “The case getting on top of you?” he asked after another pause. He sounded a little more alert now.

  “Something like that,” she said, “I just can’t find something I know will solve the case.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know, something to link the victims,” she said.

  “Well, I’m no cop,” he said, “but I know something you've said in the past that stuck with me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “If it’s not obvious, it’s something obscure. It’s rarely in between the two.”

  “I said that?”

  “Yes, you did,” he laughed. “It was near the start of us going out. I think you must have been trying to impress me with your cop wisdom.”

  “I guess it worked,” she said and she was smiling too at a vague memory of saying this in a really pompous professorial way. And what was more, it was the right thing to
hear at just that moment. “Marcus, you’re a genius, well no, I am, but you did good to remind me!” She was much more full of life now and he laughed,

  “I guess this means you just came up with a clue?”

  “Close to one at least,” she said. “Listen, I got to go.”

  “Duty calls,” he said, but there was no animosity in it. “Thanks for waking me up!”

  “You're welcome,” she smiled.

  As soon as she was off the phone to Marcus, Sarah called Tyler.

  “Hey,” he answered. He didn’t sound like he’d been asleep.

  “Hi, it’s me,” she said, “Listen, I just had an idea and I want to let you know too.”

  “Shoot.”

  “The victims, they are all going to be linked by something obscure, something we wouldn’t normally be able to link people by.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, that’s what we need to be looking for.”

  “OK, sounds like a good idea.”

  “You find anything out today?” she asked more in hope than expectation.

  “Not a damn thing,” he said, and it sounded a little irate. She knew how he felt.

  “I have a good feeling about linking them all now, though,” she said to bring some hope back to them both.

  “It will break it wide open if we can establish a link,” he said, and she felt good at this idea. Breaking wide open was the last step before solving a case, and that was somewhere she wanted to be right now.

  “Yes, we’re going to do it,” she said. “What’s Danny up to?”

  “I don’t know. I asked him to make a timeline of the blog for me, so hopefully he’s working on that.”

  “OK,” Sarah said, feeling the weight of tiredness suddenly once more. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “It will be good news next time,” Tyler said, “I can feel it.”