by R E Gauthier
“Why would a man confess to the crime if he didn’t do it? If he didn’t do it why would he kill himself.”
Kelsey shook her head and thought about it like she had many times over the years. “I cannot imagine why but I have my theories. I believe he was paid or coerced into confessing and his death seems suspicious to me. I looked at the official report of his death, and the guards said they searched him, and he had nothing on him, but he died from cutting his wrists with a razor blade. How could anyone miss a razor blade on a body search?”
Nikki searched the report Kelsey had on the death of the suspect. “The cameras in the cell block where they kept him were down that night, and no one saw anyone going in or out of his cell. He must have put the blade somewhere; no one would find it; it’s the only explanation.”
Shaking her head, Kelsey took a deep breath. “The fact that the cameras weren’t working gives me a reason to believe that this report is as bogus as the police file. There was a cover-up, and I need to find the truth. The real perpetrators are still out there, and I aim to get the real justice my family deserves.”
“This is why you became an FBI agent. You wanted to bring justice to the real person or persons responsible for your aunt, uncle, and cousin’s murders.”
Nodding, Kelsey dropped her head to look at her feet. “I have pursued this as far as I could as a civilian, and then when I became an FBI agent, I tried to find more information but only hit roadblocks because the case was closed and deemed solved. I didn’t have the means to open it or even try to look for cases like it.”
“You could have entered it into ViCAP for comparison to unsolved cases.”
“I did that and came up empty. If the people responsible have done this before, they were careful not to leave clues or get caught.”
“Mack, I don’t have to tell you how hard it will be to find any viable new leads on a twenty-one-year-old case that the police have declared solved.”
“That’s before I am named Senior Special Agent in Charge of The Behavioral Unit’s newest formed Cold Case Unit. We will have more clout to open cases, even those deemed closed by other law enforcement agencies.”
“That might be the case but how will we ever find new information? I mean most if any possible witnesses are either old or dead by now. We don’t have a crime scene we can reanalyze. We cannot even look at the forensics they had for the case.”
“No, but I squirreled away a few items that we can check for evidence. I have the bed covers from Aisling’s bed, and a few stuffed animals from her room.” I also took a few photos of footprints from outside the house after that night. Even as a thirteen-year-old I had mad investigative skills. I had read Nancy Drew books, that my mother gave me, and I had read as many crime magazines as I could get my hands on from the library.”
“Well, even with those. We’re looking for a needle in a giant mountain of a haystack with false needles.”
“Yeah, but that is why having you will be my ace-in-the-hole. You’ll be able to help me sift through all the falsehoods and help me find where my truth meets the real perpetrators.”
“About that, what are the facts? What happened that night?”
“For that, I’m going to need some more time. I cannot begin to get into the details with you until I can see my beautiful fiancée’s face.” Kelsey and Miranda had only been home for a couple of days from their Fiji vacation when Nikki pulled her out of their love nest. She missed Miranda terribly; how was she ever going to go more than a few hours from seeing her fiancée when she begins investigating this case?
“Mack, it’s only been three hours since you’ve arrived and I only got you here because Torres wanted to update us on her surveillance on Paul Washburg.”
“Yeah, about that, shouldn’t Torres be here by now? She told you, she’d be here in an hour or so, that was two hours ago.”
Nikki frowned deeply. “I’ll try calling her. You had me distracted by this.” She pointed to the file in front of her.”
“As interested as I am in learning what Paul Washburg is up to, THIS case will always take precedence over ALL other cases. Once it’s official, I want to move our office to Pittsburgh and get out of this infernal city. You’re still on board with me, aren’t you?” Kelsey hadn’t discussed it with her best friend and best FBI partner, but ever since meeting Nicole Hyland at the Academy, she knew she wanted her working with her in the newly formed FBI unit.
“I wouldn’t be any place else but with you. You’re not getting rid of me that easily but you never did tell me why you want to make Pittsburgh our base of operations.”
There were so many reasons why she wanted to leave D.C. even though the city was full of ears and eyes she’d rather not have on her, but the most important was to be closer to her family, to Nanna. She had promised herself that she would work closer to her family once she could. Kelsey also promised unofficially to Miranda and her grandmother that she would move from D. C., the first chance she had. “I mostly want to be able to see more of Nanna.”
Nikki drew a sharp breath. “She’s not ill, is she?”
Kelsey chuckled and shook her head. “My grandmother is as healthy as a horse.” Wondering for a moment why people said that. Kelsey heard Nanna say it many times, but could never understand why. “No, I want to be closer to her now that I can pick my base of operations. With the new position, I will have carte blanche on making important decisions like personnel, office location, and how we investigate cases. We’ll have to answer to fewer people and less red tape to go through when we need to decide what or where our cases will take us.”
“When is it going to become official? When will the Attorney General make the announcement?”
Kelsey thought about that for a moment. Frank Montgomery had congratulated her on another solved case before she left for Fiji with Miranda. Although she didn’t feel as if they solved anything, Kelsey accepted his words of accommodation. She couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Paul Washburg wasn’t another victim of Robert Smith’s vicious attacks on men and women in D. C., but was the real killer. Kelsey hadn’t brought up her fears when she got back into town, and Nikki only touched on the strange and surprising fact that Paul Washburg had been alive all this time when so many people thought he died in a fire at the prison five years ago. “I’m not sure; he has kept everything pretty close to the vest these days. I can’t even get a hold of my father. But I’ve been told to make myself available for a banquet in our honor a week from tomorrow. I’d wear your finest.”
Nikki’s phone rang. Tapping her Smartphone screen, Nikki said a hurried, “Hi, Torres, what’s been keeping you?”
Kelsey waited as Nikki listened to what Torres was saying. Nikki’s face displayed shock. “What the hell?”
Kelsey wanted to interrupt and ask what Torres was saying, but she remained quiet and patiently waited for Nikki to tell her what Torres conveyed to her. Nikki paced around the room and then grabbed the remote for the television. The screen popped on and Nikki changed the channel. Across the screen, the scene of a roaring fire filled the background as an on-site reporter described the scene. “Late this morning, a fire ripped through this senior complex behind me. Witnesses say the flames could be seen from miles away and fire crews were on the scene immediately. So far no one is saying how the fire started, but they are saying that no one could have survived the fire.”
Kelsey read the Breaking News feed on the bottom of the screen and saw the words Wilker’s Senior Retirement Home in Richmond, Virginia, a tragic fire, and officials suspected all fifty-two residents and staff were presumed dead. The name of the senior home was the place where Paul Washburg’s mother Nancy Washburg had been staying for almost five years after her son’s unlawful incarceration for the rape of his stepsister.
“Oh my God, Mack, that poor woman. Just after she found out her son is alive, this happens to her.” Nikki frowned.
Kelsey remembered the sneer on the face of Paul Washburg when a reporter as
ked him what his plans were now that he had his life back. He had been the focus of an investigative story about how he had been held captive by Robert Smith for nearly five years. She watched it on the flight back from Fiji, a couple of days ago. Now as she did then, Kelsey felt the chills go through her, she had a good idea that the fire was not just a horrible, tragic accident and that Paul Washburg would reveal his plans very soon.
Chapter Four
FBI Headquarters, D.C., December 20, 2011
“Mack, Earth-to-Mack”! Nikki’s voice came through the fog in Kelsey’s head.
Kelsey woke up with the worse headache, earlier that day, and now her head filled with cloudiness that refused to clear. Shaking her head, Kelsey smiled stiffly. “I’m sorry Nikki. I’m just not myself today. I didn’t sleep well and woke up with the worse headache this morning. I cannot seem to clear away this foggy feeling.”
“Maybe it’s got to do with what we learned last week. I haven’t slept well either. I cannot imagine all those people perishing in that fire. It doesn’t make sense that a fire of that magnitude would break out in a building with state-of-the-art security and fire prevention.”
Kelsey had found it hard to wrap her head around the fact that a fire ripped through the retirement home without anyone smelling the smoke, without the sprinklers going off, and without anyone alerting the officials the blaze was in progress. It was as if, the fire started in many areas all at once, taking the staff and residents by surprise. Once the fire department responded, the fire fully engulfed the entire building, and there was nothing they could do. At last word, the fire officials were still trying to determine how many victims were inside and where, and how the fire ignited. “Have you heard from Torres this morning?”
Nikki shook her head. “No, she hasn’t called me yet. She called last night to say the fire investigators still had not been able to enter the building for fear of endangering more lives. The fire destroyed the major infrastructure of the building; they’re afraid it could collapse at any moment. It had to be horrendous to sit by and watch the fire burn, and they couldn’t do much about it.”
Kelsey swallowed the lump in her throat. She couldn’t imagine the families who saw the blaze and knew their loved ones were in the fire could not get out. If Nanna had been in a place like that, she shuddered even to imagine that scenario. Kelsey had thought about the fire, but it was dreams and visions last night that disrupted her sleep. The reoccurring dream of a woman reaching out to her and repeating the same undiscernible phrase over and over again irritated her consciousness. Who was this woman and what was she trying to tell her? There was something vaguely familiar about the woman, but she couldn’t figure out, how so. Shaking her head, and closing her eyes, Kelsey attempted to get back to the subject at hand. “Nikki, you do know that this fire might be the work of Paul Washburg and if so, our case has just got more complicated.”
“Ever since we learned that Robert Smith had been dead for several months, even years. I’ve had to contend with the fact you were right when you said it wasn’t over when Paul Washburg turned out to be alive.”
Kelsey had her theories about what happened after the night of the storage unit fire. She always believed that Paul Washburg wasn’t another of Robert Smith’s victims and was, in fact, the evil mastermind behind the D. C. serial murder case. When the full pathology and forensic analysis came back on the badly burned remains of Robert Smith, it proved she was correct. Dr. Tufts decided to do a thorough report of the organ tissues, and she found evidence that proved the body sustained damage from freezing after death. She could only hazard a guess that the corpse lay in a deep freeze state for more than one year, because of the degree of dehydration of the tissues due to the extreme cold. They found a chest freezer in the storage unit belonging to Robert Smith. Kelsey speculated that Paul Washburg had killed Robert Smith a short time after the man had helped him escape prison. The two men had somehow planned the fire and killed a man to make it look like Paul had died in the fire. Paul had double-crossed his lover and accomplice by killing him and then using his identity and connections to plan and orchestrate a series of rapes and murders.
Nikki apologized for not taking Kelsey’s theory more seriously but faced with the glaringly, undeniable evidence that Robert Smith had been dead for several months or longer, she too conceded that Paul Washburg had been their Unsub all along. Kelsey knew the difficulties in solving the D. C. case had been almost impossible, but now all the evidence had led to Robert Smith’s guilt. There was not one piece of culpable evidence that would draw an investigation to Paul Washburg. All they had was circumstantial, theoretical evidence. They knew Paul Washburg was in prison the night of the fire, but he said he survived because Robert Smith helped him escape. Washburg’s hand and face were burned in the fire, and there were records of the treatments he received for the reconstruction to his face. The extent of burning to Washburg’s fingers burned off any identifiable prints. Another thing revealed about Paul Washburg from his health records was the man suffered a form of alopecia that affected most of the hair on his body. He had almost no hair on his body making the likelihood of him shedding hair impossible and resulting in a legal nightmare in identifying him with the usual forensic means. Coupled with his ability to design masks that could transform him to look like anyone but himself, Paul Washburg was like a chameleon.
Now, with this newest development, Kelsey was sure that Washburg had devised a plan to make it look like his mother was dead and he would disappear. She didn’t believe Washburg would remain hidden for long. Kelsey believed he still had so much he wanted to do, and he made that clear when he attempted to kill Jeanette Willsgate. Paul Washburg, disguised as Robert Smith had taunted Kelsey and the FBI for months and he wasn’t about to let this be his swansong. When Kelsey returned from her vacation in Fiji with Miranda, she asked Torres to keep an eye on Paul Washburg because they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest or even question him. Kelsey didn’t want to tip him off that she was onto him and his true identity as the D. C. serial murderer they had been pursuing for several weeks.
Nikki stood staring at her. “You’re off in the faraway place again. Where did you go?”
Kelsey shook her head. “I was thinking that all this time Paul Washburg had been playing a long game, he hasn’t been in a rush until we started looking into the deaths in D.C. I think we may have underestimated him; what if he’s gone back to what he knows best? What if he started the fire at the retirement home?”
“You think that he started this fire? Why would he risk his mother dying in a fire? What would he gain from starting a fire in the retirement home, where his mother felt safe?”
“Washburg gains the control he lost, he creates chaos, and he gets our attention. Narcissists like Paul Washburg, cannot remain in the shadows long. He feeds on being the center of attention, and he wants to control what we do and what we think.”
“But what if his mother did die? Why would he let her die?”
“I don’t think he would let her die. I think he may want us to think she is dead so we’ll leave her alone, but he wouldn’t want to kill her. He still wants and needs her approval. She didn’t want to believe he raped his step-sister and Paul needs to prove to her, he’s the good son she wants him to be. No, he started the fire to draw attention to himself and let us know he can do whatever he wants and we cannot stop him. If he wants to kill dozens of people, he’ll do it to stop us from finding out where he is going and what is his next move.”
“That would make sense. I mean Paul Washburg doesn’t care about the people he hurts if it means it brings him closer to his ultimate goal. What do you think he’s going to do next?”
Kelsey thought about Nikki’s question for a bit and wondered what Paul could be planning. Whatever it was it was enough to distract Kelsey and her new Behavioral Cold Case Unit, before it even officially started, from looking into the case she wanted them to investigate. “I’m not certain; I haven’t been able to get a be
ad on him in my visions. I’ve seen a few fragments of things. A fuzzy image of a face, a dark room, some smells I cannot decipher. Nothing is concrete enough to discern anything that makes much sense.”
“Torres and her partner haven’t been able to find his trail either; It went cold the day they lost him in the mall.”
“How did they lose him again?” Kelsey wondered how a seasoned investigator and FBI Director could get duped by a person she was surveilling.
“Torres said that he went into the mall, and her partner followed him. He went to a few stores and bought some random items: a shirt, a pair of pants and a pair of shoes. He then went to the men’s washroom, and she waited outside for him to come out. She waited for ten minutes, and a few men went in and came out but not Paul. Torres said her partner then asked a security guard to go and see if there was anyone left inside. He said the washroom was empty. Torres went in and scoured the washroom; she found a discarded mask of Paul Washburg and the clothes he was wearing.”
Kelsey came to the same conclusion she had the first time she heard the story: Paul Washburg was never in the mall. Torres and her partner were following a decoy while the real Paul Washburg walked about unsupervised and undeterred to do what he wanted. “Washburg played us; he played Torres because he knew she was surveilling him all along and waited until he needed to escape detection to use a decoy. I think he did it so we wouldn’t know what he was planning. He needed to put his plan to set the fire and get his mother out into action, and he didn’t want Torres to see him or try to stop him. He’s known all along we’ve been keeping a close eye on him. Now, he’s using the diversion of the fire and its investigation to evade us and our attempts to locate him again. He’s out there planning without fear of us being able to stop him.”