‘Marianne, do you remember that news story on TV? The one Ethan had been watching when you interrupted.’ Salgado held his breath. ‘Do you remember who it was that had been killed?’
She looked up at him, momentarily surprised.
‘No. I’m sorry.’ She looked distraught. ‘I hadn’t been watching it, I only saw a headline about a man’s body being found.’
Salgado and O’Neill felt the lead slip through their fingers.
‘But I do remember the date that I ran from that house,’ Marianne added. ‘Like it’s engraved on my heart. Would that help?’
‘That would help a lot.’
*
The one cousin of Ethan Garland’s that had turned up at his wedding to Marianne Ziegler, Mike Durrant, turned out to be a retired mechanic living outside Carson City. O’Neill got his address from Marianne and had the Carson City sheriff’s department call on him.
A few hours later, Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Kearney phoned her back with a report on the conversation. Durrant had been surprised and upset by the news of Garland’s death but said he hadn’t seen his cousin in six years and hadn’t spoken to him in four. He’d explained that although his mother and Ethan Garland’s father had been brother and sister, an eleven-year age gap meant the two cousins weren’t particularly close.
‘He says that his family went down to LA every summer for a few years and he regularly got stuck with Ethan. He remembers him as a slightly strange kid, dark and brooding is how he describes him, a bit of a loner. He says that Ethan wasn’t the kind of kid who would sit around and chat about sports or movies, but if you found a dead bird he’d want to poke it with a stick and see what was inside.
‘He says the last time they met was in 2016 when Mr Durrant was in LA for a funeral. He gave Ethan Garland a call and they met up for a beer. His memory is that Ethan was very distracted and regularly drifting out of the conversation. Mr Durrant finally challenged him on it and Garland said it was because he’d got involved in some new partnership and it was playing on his mind a lot.’
‘A partnership?’
‘Mr Durrant asked him about it and says Garland was very vague. He said something about how he’d met some guy and they were exploring ways of working together. He got the impression Garland regretted bringing it up and tried to change the subject. The last time they spoke was on the phone. Mr Durrant says he asked how the partnership was going and Garland said that he couldn’t talk about it. That was the last he heard from him.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Mr Durrant says the trips to LA were often cut short because his father, Len Durrant, and Ethan’s father, Zachary Garland, didn’t get on. Mr Durrant says his dad warned his kids to steer clear of Zac Garland because he was trouble.’
‘Did he say what he meant by that?’
‘He was reluctant but said that Zac Garland was the black sheep of the family. He said that his Aunt Veronica, Ethan Garland’s mother, had committed suicide when Ethan was young and everyone blamed Zac for driving her to it. He pretty much said that Zac was always screwing around – women would call the Garland house looking for this guy or that guy. The names varied but Veronica was sure Zac was just giving them aliases. And he was violent. He says everyone was kind of scared of the guy and that one night, when Len Durrant was drunk, he told Mike that he was sure Zac had done something terrible but had gotten away with it.
‘Zac had been in insurance, made plenty of money from it but was always on the move from one firm to another, one customer to the next.’
‘Did he say anything about how Ethan was when his mother killed herself?’
‘Yes. He says Ethan blamed his mom. That he’d always blamed her for his dad not being home and then he blamed her for committing suicide. Mr Durrant says Ethan and his father were very close and Ethan would never hear a bad word said about him. I asked him if he would be surprised if Ethan had gotten himself into any serious trouble. Right away, he said he would but then he stopped and corrected himself.
‘He says that Ethan had a temper and he was Zac Garland’s son. So, nothing would surprise him.’
Oh, I think it would, O’Neill thought. I think it would.
CHAPTER 7
The house on Finley Street had been in lockdown since Garland’s body was found, everything being photographed and documented. Salgado and O’Neill switched back and forth between the house and LAPD headquarters on West Street where they’d bagged an office that they were sharing with computer techs, principally Kurt Geisler, and had regular visits from the criminalists. They’d also picked up a hitchhiker from CCSS, the cold case section of Robbery Homicide. Charlie Randall had been stationed with them on the likelihood that some of the body parts might belong to old investigations and he’d bring what knowledge he could.
They’d begun to put together an investigation board, or a ‘crazy wall’, as Salgado preferred to call it. It didn’t have anywhere near as much on it as any of them would have liked. A head shot of Garland, pics of the more gruesome parts of his collection. It needed to grow or else it would be shut down, as would their case. There were resources for a potential serial killer but not much for a weirdo who collected freaky shit. They had to prove they were after the former.
Which meant that Elvis was greeted like a hero home from the war when he came through the office door. The fact he was carrying a bag of doughnuts and a four-cup tray of coffees helped too.
‘I got Ms Donut’s finest dough-and-sugar in a variety of flavours. I got a latte macchiato, an americano, a flat white and a doppio. If you want sugar in that, you got doughnuts. And I got DNA results. If you want to nominate someone for a pay raise or a Nobel Prize then my name’s Elvis and I’m here all week. Questions?’
‘Is the americano a blonde roast like I asked?’
‘Salgado, can it.’ O’Neill got on the case. ‘Elvis, what’s the results?’
‘Nothing final.’ He began handing over coffees as he talked. ‘But I know how impatient you investigating types get so I come bearing information that you may find useful. Tests aren’t complete on the body parts, but I can tell you one thing.’
Elvis paused to hand out doughnuts, and for dramatic effect.
‘The five body parts come from five different people. I can confirm that you have five different victims. All unrelated.’
Salgado pumped a fist and didn’t care if anyone noticed. He wanted this to be big.
‘You have four male victims and one female. We are not at a stage where we can try for matches but we will be very soon. When that happens, you will be the first to know. And before anyone asks, no we don’t know how old they were, we don’t know if they had an Irish grandmother or if they’re directly descended from either Africa or George Washington. We should have full results by late this evening.’
‘Five victims,’ Salgado repeated.
‘Don’t try to sound so happy about it,’ O’Neill cautioned. ‘I don’t think the mayor is going to declare a public holiday to celebrate.’
‘You know what I mean. Garland is our guy. He’s done this. Five of them. What else have you got for us, Elvis?’
The criminalist held his arms wide, as if offended. ‘Coffee, doughnuts and DNA aren’t enough for you? Tough crowd. Okay, I also have the autopsy report on Garland. Full and official results to follow, but I have the headlines. Basically, as expected. He had a massive coronary, didn’t stand a chance. No suspicious circumstances.’
He paused to let that sink in. ‘He’d had no history of treatment, nothing picked up on previous physicals. There was chronic heart disease, but it was never likely to show except on the table after he’d been cut open. The pathologist said he had a ticking time bomb inside him and didn’t know it. No way he was dodging this one.’
‘Fuck him,’ Salgado muttered. ‘Respectfully.’
‘Nice, Detective. Nice. Unless you need me for anything else then I’m going to have myself a doughnut then I will have left the building. That DNA won’
t test itself.’
‘Good work, Elvis. And thanks for the doughnuts and coffee. I’ll write to the Nobel committee. Sweden, right?’
‘Right. Don’t forget the stamp.’
As Elvis turned away, Salgado saw the IT tech twitching to get into the conversation, sheets of paper in his hand.
‘Okay, Geisler, what you got? Elvis has set the bar pretty high.’
‘Well, I ain’t got doughnuts.’
‘You lose.’
‘I figured. What I’ve got is an update on Garland’s PC and not much of it is good news. All I have in the way of search history is a very limited session but even that means we caught a break. I’ve printed out everything from that and I’ve emailed copies to you both too.’
‘A limited session doesn’t sound like a break,’ Salgado complained.
‘Yes, I know,’ Geisler replied patiently. ‘But it’s way better than nothing, which is what we were supposed to get. My guess is he habitually locked this room behind him when he went upstairs into the house so as to safeguard whatever he was viewing or searching. Where we got the break was that he never made it back down so couldn’t log off.’
‘How would the computer wipe his history?’
‘It looks like he used a Tor connection. You know what that is?’
‘I know the word,’ O’Neill admitted, ‘but basically, no, I don’t know.’
‘It’s an anonymity network. Tor lets you do whatever you do, and no one knows who you are, your internet business isn’t monitored by anyone.’
Salgado leaned forward in his chair. ‘But it’s monitored by us, right?’
‘Not by anyone,’ Geisler repeated. ‘It uses relays, over seven thousand of them, to disguise the source IP address. Each relay only decrypts enough to reveal the next relay.’
‘So, it works like a mafia cell.’
‘Exactly. It’s all on a need to know, no need to tell basis.’
‘And it’s not going to tell us?’
‘Right. At least not quickly. Given time, I can get some of it. Given for ever, I might be able to get all of it. But that’s time we clearly don’t have. I’ll need to talk to the service provider, get a warrant, yada yada yada. And I’ll almost certainly need help from the Feds. If they’ll give it.’
‘Oh great.’ Salgado sighed theatrically. ‘So, what do we have?’
The sigh was matched by one of exasperation from the tech. He was pretty sure he’d explained this already.
‘We have the search history from that one session. It’s all in the doc I emailed you but if you need it summarised, I can do that.’
‘Please do.’
‘Okay. It runs to just a three-hour period, but he was busy. There was quite a bit of time spent on Facebook, a few articles viewed on there and I’ve listed them all. He was also on a number of news sites, some mainstream but others are on the alt-right. InfoWars, Breitbart, World Net Daily, Townhall. He spent a short time on Gab and 4chan but short enough that I don’t think he could have done anything more than looked in either and left again. Apart from that, there were some general searches on Google and they’re all listed in the doc. Which I emailed to you and which I am now also handing to you.’
Salgado began to retort but Geisler cut him off.
‘I also have this.’ He held four sheets of paper. ‘The bad news is he seems to have done a lot of regular housekeeping on this machine. He wasn’t a hoarder, that’s for sure, and has gone out of his way to protect himself. But I did find one file that he had, presumably for easy, probably regular, access. This is the printout of it. It’s definitely interesting.’
Interesting was a word they liked.
‘Again, I’ve emailed it to you both, but I thought you’d want to read it immediately. There was no useful title on the file, it was labelled “Christmas Card List” so I almost went past it but then I thought it might give you known associates. But it’s not that at all. Not unless his cards were weirdly detailed.’
O’Neill took the printout and began to read it.
‘It’s a list of names with biographies for each,’ Geisler explained. ‘It lists age, appearance, job title and description, likes and dislikes. A mix of male and female.’
‘A list of victims?’ O’Neill couldn’t hide the excitement in her voice.
‘Well . . .’ Geisler’s tone didn’t offer the hope she wanted.
‘Kurt, don’t tell us it’s Christmas in one breath then Santa’s dead in the other,’ Salgado warned.
‘It might be Christmas,’ Geisler shrugged, ‘but I don’t have anything that says it’s snowing. I’ve only had the chance to run a few of the names but no hits so far.’
‘So, what are these?’ Salgado sounded like he was ready to shoot the messenger.
‘That’s your job,’ Geisler smiled. ‘It’s why you get paid the big bucks.’
‘You really should stop hacking my bank account and hack this fucker’s computer instead. We need everything you can screw out of it.’
‘I’m on it.’
O’Neill and Salgado began studying the list. It was broken down into sections, all under individual names.
Alice Reid: Age 29. Five foot two. Blue eyes. Long dark hair. Slim. Best feature, eyes.
Single. Mother of one. Graphic designer. Monday to Friday. Been in same job three years.
Ambition: manager or run own art gallery.
Likes: Cats. Modern art. Running. Dance. Cake. Rain.
TV shows: Mad Men. Better Call Saul. Love Island.
RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Favorite movie: La La Land.
Music: Nina Simone. Adele. Beyoncé. Amy Winehouse.
Dislikes: Pushy guys. Mondays. Traffic jams.
Smoking. Pigeons.
‘What the hell is this?’ Salgado asked aloud.
Greg Hurst: Age 32. Six foot one. Fair hair. Blue eyes. Athletic build. Optician. Formerly worked in retail. Current job two years.
Ambition: own own business.
Likes: Sports, particularly running. Cars. Travel, particularly cities. Partying. Dogs.
TV shows: Big Bang Theory. Curb Your Enthusiasm. Black Mirror.
Favourite movie: The Hangover.
Music: Nirvana. Kings of Leon. Foo Fighters.
Dislikes: Mornings. Carrots. Decaf.
Brianna Holden: Age 27. Five foot four. Green eyes. Long blond hair. Slim. Best feature, thinks it’s her smile but it’s her legs.
Married. Mother of two. Shop worker. Been in same job three years.
Ambition: to create own clothing brand.
The list went on. Steve McLennan. Kris Perera. Ellen Lambert. Jamie Stark. Danny Cook. Stefan Kalinowksi.
Chrissie Ramsay: Age 32. Five foot four. Dark brown hair. Green eyes. Curvy. Married. Student. Studying politics and philosophy.
Ambition: Wants to be a policy advisor.
Likes: Activism. Equality. Buddhism. Craft beer. Cooking.
TV shows: Chef’s Table. The West Wing. House of Cards. Breaking Bad.
Favourite movie: The Shawshank Redemption.
Music: Joni Mitchell. Wyclef Jean. Springsteen. Rage Against the Machine.
Dislikes: Poverty. War. Misogyny. Climate change deniers.
And the list went on.
O’Neill called over to the cold case cop. ‘Hey, Charlie, any of these names mean anything to you?’
Randall was a long streak of a man, as slim as he was tall with a mournful face that nurtured a perpetual grievance. He took the printout from Salgado and scanned it. They watched his eyes go from top to bottom and then repeat the process.
‘Nope. Not one of them is familiar. I wish I could say different.’
‘How many outstandings do you have, Charlie?’ she asked.
‘Too many. This is southern California. If you want to add missing persons to unidentified bodies to unidentifiable bodies then double it and add the number you first thought of. Ask me tomorrow and it will be more.’
‘CCSS must be a laugh a m
inute,’ Salgado teased.
‘It has its moments. Can’t all be car chases and press conferences.’
‘Yeah. We’re all about the glamour.’
‘You notice that about half of this list is in italics and half in a plain font?’ he pointed out. ‘That mean something?
‘Detectives!’
The shout was from their left, but they let it wash over them.
‘Detectives!’ Geisler’s voice was urgent. ‘You better see this. Now.’
They turned to where the tech was sitting, fingers above the keyboard of the computer they’d moved from Garland’s cellar, and looking at a pop-up box which was open and flashing on the screen.
‘What’s that?’
‘A chat function. I took the chance of opening it and we have a visitor. They came on almost as soon as I opened it.’
Inside the chat box, the name of the caller was listed at the top. Matthew Marr. Below was his opening line.
Where the hell have you been, Ethan? It should be done by now. He should be dead.
They froze. Cops. Forensics. IT techs. None of them trusted their eyes to read it only once. It demanded to be checked.
He should be dead.
In the absence of a response, the screen flashed again.
Ethan?
Salgado motioned Geisler out of the chair and took his place. With a final look at O’Neill, he began typing.
I’m here.
The pause seemed huge but was probably no more than ten seconds. No one in the cellar dared breathe until they saw the icon shift and knew the person on the other end was typing. In a heartbeat, the reply appeared on the screen.
Goodbye.
CHAPTER 8
Sinky worked in the Blue Lagoon in Gordon Street, serving fish suppers to the masses. The chippy was right next to Central Station and within staggering distance of a hundred pubs and clubs, so the place was always rocking and likely queuing out the door any time after 11 p.m. at the weekend. And it was Glasgow, so the weekend ran four or five days long. Sure you had to deal with your share of bams, but most of them were civil enough. Even the junkies were polite.
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