Hunting Michael Underwood

by L V Gaudet

  The guard stops at the door to one of the small interview rooms used for inmates’ meetings with their lawyers, meant to afford them a small measure of privacy.

  It’s one of the rooms Michael Underwood met with Jason McAllister in after the trial.

  “Here he is,” the guard says, slipping his key card into the box outside the door. The red light flashes to green and the door unlocks with an audible sound.

  Jim half feels like something is missing without the large ring of jangling keys old prison movies bring the image of to his mind.

  “I’ll be right outside.” The guard points to the small mesh reinforced window in the door. “Wave or bang on the door when you are done. I won’t be able to hear you at normal conversation level, but if he tries anything just yell, I’ll hear that.”

  “He won’t try anything.”

  The guard opens the door and lets Jim in. The door closes solidly behind him, shutting out the nonstop echoing noises of the prison to distant phantoms.

  “Jason T. McAllister,” Jim addresses the man sitting in a chair on the other side of a table. A chair waits for him on the near side. Jason is wearing wrist and ankle shackles that are attached to a chain, chaining him to the wall like a vicious dog.

  Jason does not look like a serial killer, but then they rarely do. He looks like he would have been big and bulky in a muscular way in his prime when he was burgeoning into a young man, a labourer’s body, a farm boy who grew up on hard labour and continued with it through his adult years. Age and lifestyle had thinned him down and he has lost weight in the months spent in a cell. His age-worn face is weathered from years working outside, giving him that ageless look of a man who looks older than his years. His hair that was beginning to salt and pepper has grown saltier during his brief incarceration.

  “You wanted to see me?” Jason says with a smirk.

  Jim takes the seat across from him, leaning back in the chair. He would have liked to lean forward, but you never lean forward when sitting across from a suspect.

  “So, you managed to get a pass out of this place into someplace more accommodating,” he says, feeling Jason out.

  “I’m crazy, you know.”

  Jim nods. “I bet you are.”

  “Did you just come here to wish me luck?”

  “No. Now that the death penalty and spending the rest of your useless life in prison are off the table, I thought you might like to help me out a little.”

  “I’ll help you with anything I can.” Jason smiles. The smile does not reach his eyes. This is not a man accustomed to smiling.

  “Michael Underwood came to see you after the conviction came down,” Jim says.

  “Yes he did. I guess he wanted to say goodbye before I got the death penalty.”

  “He wanted to say goodbye all right. He’s gone missing. You don’t know anything about that, do you?”

  “He is? I don’t have much access to what goes on outside these walls.” Jason waves his shackled arms to indicate the prison walls. The chains jangle as a reminder of who he is to the man sitting across from him, an animal and a killer.

  Jim is full of questions, but he has to move carefully. Jason has no reason to cooperate with him.

  “You knew Michael, didn’t you?” Jim asks. “Before this whole thing.” He waves his hand to include the prison, meaning the arrest and the missing and murdered women.

  Jason just smiles. He doesn’t need to answer. The detective already knows the answer to the question. He is not going to admit anything.

  “What’s his real name?” Jim asks. “Michael Underwood is a fake name, his identity a lie. We both know it. Who is he really?”

  “That, I can’t tell you.” Jason’s expression remains unflinchingly casual.

  Jim can see the underlying tension beneath the façade.

  “You can’t tell me or you won’t?”

  “You got me there.” Jason smiles again. “Both.”

  Jim looks at Jason pointedly. The man is playing games with him.

  “Where is the Jane Doe?” Jim asks.

  “You have to ask her that,” Jason says with his irritating smile.

  “Where is Michael Underwood?”

  Jason shrugs. “I have no idea.”

  “Where is Katherine Kingslow? Is she alive? What did Michael do with her? Did he kill her?”

  “You have to ask him that.” Jason is staying calm and casual against the onslaught of questions. He isn’t worried.

  There’s nothing new here. No questions I didn’t expect. The detective knows only what he knew before, nothing. He’s just trying to goad me into a reaction and I’m not going to give it to him.

  “Where are the bodies, Jason?” Jim demands, his voice low and cold. “Do you know where the bodies are? Where are Jane Doe and Katherine buried?”

  Jason just stares back calmly.

  I’m getting nowhere and it’s time to play my Ace, Jim thinks. I’m bluffing, of course. I have no Ace, just a name. But like a game of poker, it is that seed of doubt that will win or lose your hand; make the other player sweat and fold over what he thinks you have.

  He stares hard into Jason’s eyes, his expression serious and his voice low and steady, revealing nothing.

  If there is one thing Jim can be accused of, it is having a good poker face.

  “Where is Cassie?”

  Jason just stares at him, but there it is. Jim catches it, that fleeting shift of the eyes, the almost imperceptible tensing of the muscles, the start of the jaw clenching before Jason can bring his reaction under control.

  Jackpot.

  Jason feels the room jolt like a physical blow with the words. ‘Where is Cassie?’ His muscles tense, his jaw clenches, and immediately he fights to keep them loose and casual.

  How did he know?

  “Yes, I know about Cassie,” Jim says, watching for Jason’s reaction. “Michael isn’t as clever or as careful as he thinks he is. He let it slip. Either he didn’t realize it, or he hoped I didn’t notice, but it slipped out.”

  “Maybe he just threw that out there to mess with you.” Jason smiles. “A made up name to put you off.”

  The underlying tension and the strain in Jason’s voice confirms Jim’s suspicion.

  Whoever this Cassie is, she is the key to discovering what the relationship between these two men is and that is the key to finding Michael.

  Jim’s mind works quickly, juggling the names and the pieces. Jane Doe, Katherine Kingslow, Cassie. Two of them are complete unknowns. Is Cassie another victim? Is she one of the hundreds of still unidentified bodies still being exhumed from the massive hidden graveyard in the woods? Was she buried somewhere else? I suspect she and Jane Doe could be buried in the same place, somewhere far from the graveyard. Most Likely Katherine is there too.

  Concentrate on just one name, one name only, Jim cautions himself. If I slip, one wrong word could reveal to McAllister that I’m just grasping, hoping to make him reveal something.

  Jim shakes his head slowly at Jason, a slow predatory smile creasing his lips.

  “Cassie,” his voice is almost a whisper. “I know.” He taps his temple for emphasis. “I’m going to find her.”

  Jason’s mind is whirling. What does he know? Is he just playing me? Plucking a random name for one of the bodies from nowhere to see how I react? Was it the name of one of the many victims buried over the years? I never knew any of their names, except for the ones I killed myself. But why did he use that name of all possible names?

  Jason’s confidence is slipping. No, it is shattering. McNelly knows something. But what? What the hell does he know about Cassie?

  Jim leans forward now, breaking the cardinal rule against putting yourself in harm’s way. Jason needs only to lash out quickly enough, wrap his shackled arms around his head and, straddling the table, throttle him. Jim would be defenceless. If his shackles could reach.

  Jim is aware of this, but he sees the shock in the other man’s eyes, that his mind is b
usy working over what he may or may not know. He is in total control, the aggressor.

  “What do you know McAllister?” he hisses. “What do you have and who do you have it over? How did you get the death penalty dropped? How did you get life changed to a quick stint in the nut house? How are you getting released so fast now?”

  He leans back again, conscious of the danger he put himself in, but confident McAllister is too smart to make a move.

  “What do you know?” he asks again.

  Jason pushes the fear down. He looks at his enemy across the table and smiles casually. It’s a forced smile.

  “I know where the bodies are,” he says, laughing at his own joke.

  He winks at Jim.

  “Everybody knows where the bodies are now,” Jason says.

  “You won’t stay free for long. I’ll be digging into every pile of dirt in your background, every piece of trash you have ever discarded. I will find out where your family went when they fled town so many years ago. They did flee, didn’t they? Now why would that be?”

  Jim pauses, not quite giving him time to answer. He isn’t looking for an answer. “Who is still alive? Your father? Mother? I will track down and talk to everyone who ever knew your family.”

  Breathing heavier, Jim leans in again.

  Jason feels his warmth of his breath on his face, smelling the stale stink of coffee and cigarettes.

  “I know you and Michael have a past, that you both are somehow involved with the graves. How far back does it go? Who else is involved? There are more graves than two people could dig in a lifetime.

  I will prove that you and Michael are behind the graves and they’ll give the both of you the death penalty. But if you help, they’ll consider giving you life instead. If you help me, I’ll help you. They’ll go easier on you.”

  Jason chuckles. “What makes you think life like this would be preferable to death?” Jason holds up his shackled hands.

  “Where are Katherine and Jane Doe? Is either of them still alive? Help me find them.” Jim isn’t begging.

  I would never stoop to begging one of these animals, Jim thinks. I just hope appealing to any shred of decency that exists in him, if there is any at all, might help. If there is even the smallest shred of hope Jane Doe and Katherine are still alive, I have to find them fast.

  “Help me find them before Michael kills them. If they are already dead, then help me bring closure to their families.”

  “I can’t help you,” Jason says.

  Jim pushes himself up off the chair, frustrated.

  “I will find them. Katherine Kingslow. Jane Doe. Cassie. I will find all three and, if they are dead, you and Michael will die with a cocktail of government approved drugs dripping into your arms.

  He narrows his eyes meaningfully.

  “It isn’t always the fast death they promise.”

  Jason smiles. McNelly just slipped up.

  Jim turns and bangs on the door, impatiently waiting for the guard to open it. The inmate’s smirk is pushing him towards the urge to beat the answers out of him.

  Jim pauses in the doorway on the way out, turning back to Jason.

  “I will find them.” It is a promise to Jason McAllister, to Michael Underwood, and to himself. It is a promise to the three women, Katherine, Jane Doe, and Cassie. It is a promise to his wife.

  Jim lets the door bang loudly closed behind him and walks away, lumbering up the hallway away from a killer of unimaginable proportions.

  Jason just sits there smiling at the closed door.

  “You had me there for a moment,” he says, thinking about the panic he felt when the detective mentioned the name Cassie. “You know nothing.”

  3Looking to the Past

  Jim returns to his office on a mission. Beth is at her desk when he walks in and the third desk in the shared office sits conspicuously empty. Detective Michael Underwood’s position has not yet been filled.

  Beth turns and scowls at Jim.

  “Jerry LaCroix stopped in. He’s trying for Michael’s job. If he gets it, I quit.”

  Being a civilian employee, she can’t simply transfer to another shift or department.

  “He won’t get it.” Jim pauses, reconsidering what he is about to ask, and decides to go ahead. I’ll take any blame.

  “Beth, I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  “Underwood. I need everything you can dig up on him. I don’t care how trivial it seems, I want everything. I want a copy of his personnel file, memos and emails, a trace on where the email came from confirming his transfer. It had to come from somewhere outside of the department. I want copies of his phone bills, his rental contract, talk to his landlord and neighbours. I want to know if he so much as borrowed a book from a library and where he bought his groceries. You get what you can and I’ll do the legwork and interviews.”

  “That’s a tall order. This is an internal affairs investigation, not ours. We shouldn’t be touching it.”

  “We’re investigating the hidden graveyard in the woods beyond the McAllister farm and the two missing women from the McAllister case. He’s a suspect like any other.”

  “If you say so,” Beth sighs. “We really need that other detective.”

  Jim waves it off. “I’ll get to it.”

  “What will you be doing?”

  “Reviewing all his case notes and the case notes for the cases for the missing women and the graves, especially for Katherine Kingslow and Jane Doe. And digging up anything I can on Jason McAllister and his family.”

  “Speaking of digging in the dirt, Lawrence Hawkworth was looking for you.”

  Beth doesn’t like the reporter. Everything about him rubs her wrong, from his buzzard-like appearance to his borderline illegal investigative techniques that too often cross the line, to his tendency to dig up the dirt on people for his stories whether they deserve to have it put out there for the world to see or not.

  “I’ll track him down later.”

  Jim digs out a pile of files, plops them on his desk with a loud thud, and settles his large frame into his chair with a grunt to start going through them.

  “The answers are hiding somewhere, probably where I would least suspect, and I’m going to find them.”

  4Lawrence Talks to Cliff Hofstead

  Lawrence Hawkworth rubs his eyes wearily. They are dry and aching from the dust and hours spent searching through microfiche of old newspapers in the dingy basement of the newspaper building.

  Anything more current is available on computer, but not going back to the 1980’s. Attempts to convert the old microfiche to digital images had stalled from lack of manpower committed to the task.

  He stretches wearily in the uncomfortable metal folding chair, getting to his feet stiffly to stretch more.

  “I learned a bit about the local history of the area and the McAllisters,” he says, satisfied, putting away the microfiche he has out.

  “With this and my notes from re-interviewing the people I talked to chasing down leads on the serial killer before we identified him, I’m ready to dig deeper. I just have one more person to talk to. Cliff Hofstead. I never got to talk to him before.”

  He collects his notes and leaves.

  Lawrence drives out of town to a farm not far from the city. The farmyard is what he expects. An older farmhouse squats in the yard with a wide parking area next to it. He can see where additions were build on, enlarging the house, despite attempts to make them fit seamlessly with the older home.

  The wide expanse of yard is a tidy mix of neatly mowed lawn a large fenced vegetable garden on one side, and the rear yard a barren quarter down gravel appearing almost as concrete. One side has a row of silos and the other a large workshop garage that would fit two large tractors of the sort that would be used for large crop fields and the farmer would have to access by climbing a ladder up to the cab.

  Parking near the house, Lawrence goes and knocks on the door.

  A man answers.
/>   “Cliff Hofstead?” Lawrence asks.

  “Yes sir, what can I do you for?”

  Lawrence holds out his large hand, long fingers splayed, for a handshake.

  “I’m Lawrence Hawkworth with the InterCity Voice. I’m doing an article on the McAllister Farm and I’ve been talking to people who have lived in the area when the family still lived at the farm.”

  Cliff’s face puckers into a disapproving look.

  I hope that look doesn’t mean he won’t talk, Lawrence thinks.

  “I saw the Hofstead name on the farm on the current tax rolls and going quite a way back. Your family has been farming here a while?”

  “We’ve been raising cattle for a while. The farm has been in the family a few generations,” Cliff says. “My grandfather left it to my father and I inherited it from him.”

  “So, your family is still raising cattle here.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You grew up here?” Lawrence asks. “You must have gone to school with Jason McAllister. What do you know about him as a boy, and his family?”

  “I was older than the McAllister kid,” Cliff says. “There was only the one school, so yeah; we went to the same school. I didn’t hang out with Jason. Barely knew him to say hi and I wouldn’t have bothered even if the McAllisters did associate with anyone outside their family. Those kids weren’t in school half the time anyway; Jason even less than his sister.”

  “What can you tell me about the McAllisters and the rumours around them back then?”

  “They kept to themselves; didn’t go to church or anything in town. Hardly ever saw the kids’ mom. Everybody figured they weren’t allowed to have friends or talk to anyone. Their old man was strange that way.

  I heard the rumours about the McAllister family. Everyone who grew up in the area in that generation heard the stories. They’d sooner shoot you than talk to you if you step on their property. They’ve always been odd. Funny, they’ve been here more generations than anyone else, but they’ve always been more outsider than anyone who moved in new. It’s no wonder everyone thought William McAllister had to be behind girls disappearing and showing up dead.”