As the children were going upstairs to change out of their school uniforms, Elena sat with the Whites in the living room.
“This isn’t purely a social call,” Elena said to Jessica.
“Do you need our help?”
“Actually, Samantha would be better suited.”
Jessica sighed. She and White had agreed to let Samantha be a part of PREY despite her young age because they both knew that it gave her an outlet for her… urges. Like White, Samantha was a predator. A predator needed to hunt prey. White hunted serial killers. Samantha’s target of choice were pedophiles.
“She’s got school,” Jessica told Elena.
“I know, and I don’t want to interfere with that. But she will have time off soon because of the upcoming holiday, won’t she?”
“Thanksgiving, yes. But I wouldn’t want her to spend all her time off away from us.”
“I understand. What I have in mind will take only one day, two at the most.”
“What is it?” White asked.
Elena went on to explain that there had been three girls raped in a town that was sixty miles away. Operatives from PREY visited the town and learned that the police had a suspect but have yet to name him. PREY learned what they were doing by following the police.
“They’ve kept the man under observation for a week. The only time he left his house was to walk to a nearby store to buy groceries. Because of budget considerations the surveillance has been suspended. This town has a small police force and an equally small budget. It must have strained their resources to watch him for even a week.”
“Was the man brought in for questioning?” Jessica asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Jessica, the man we’re talking about is Eric Reed.”
“Ah,” Jessica said. She had recognized the name from the news.
Eric Reed had been a topic of conversation a year earlier. Reed, who was thirty-four, had been labeled a sexual predator for exposing himself to two young girls when he was nineteen. The truth of the matter is that he was wrongfully accused by an irate father.
Reed had been hiking in the woods with a friend when he needed to urinate. He went behind a tree to do so. He had just finished relieving himself when two sisters, ages eight and nine, crested a nearby hill and saw him. One of the girls screamed and they went running back to their campsite and told their father what had happened. Reed attempted to explain the circumstances of his accidental flashing to the girls’ parents but was beaten by the father.
His friend, who had been a few yards away when the incident took place, had backed up his story. That didn’t matter to the police or to the local DA who was running for reelection. In the end, Eric Reed was sentenced to spend three months in jail. During that time, he lost his scholarship to medical school along with his good name and reputation. As a registered sex offender, his prospects for meaningful employment were bleak.
Over the following years, Reed was questioned whenever there was an incident that involved someone sexually assaulting a young female. This extended to jurisdictions that were over a hundred miles away from where he lived. Members of his own family refused to have anything to do with him. One uncle, related by marriage, told a reporter that he always suspected that there was something off about Reed. When his niece was born, Reed was excluded from the christening.
Many years after being released from jail he found himself in danger of serving a far longer sentence. A witness to the abduction of a child had picked Reed out of a lineup. The girl was taken early on a Fourth of July weekend as her family was in town visiting relatives. Reed spent the next fifty-one hours being grilled by police and FBI agents as they attempted to get him to confess to being the abductor. Exhausted, hungry, and disoriented from lack of sleep, a detective offered Reed a chance to rest if he would just admit that he was involved in the abduction. With a camera rolling, Reed nodded.
“You took the girl?”
Reed nodded again. “Put me in a cell. I want to sleep.”
The cop leaned closer across the metal table. “Is that a yes? You took the girl?”
Another nod.
“I need you to say it, Reed. Admit your guilt and you’ll get that cell you want.”
“Yes,” Reed whispered. It was so faint that it sounded like a hiss.
“What was that?”
“Yes. Yes. I took her. Now please, let me sleep.”
The detective escorted Reed to a cell, then called the DA. The girl in question had been found strangled to death hours after Reed had been brought in for questioning. With his “confession,” Reed had essentially admitted to the murder and sexual assault of a seven-year-old girl.
The State’s case fell apart almost before the ink had dried on the indictment. Two of Reed’s neighbors came forward and stated that they had seen him enter his apartment at the approximate time that the little girl had been snatched from the backyard she had been playing in. That yard was forty-two miles away from Reed’s apartment house.
DNA evidence would later rule out Reed as a contributor. A partial thumbprint found on the child’s shoe was also not a match to Reed.
After a famous lawyer involved herself in the case, Reed’s fortunes took a turn for the better. The lawyer’s team of investigators found a new witness to the abduction. It was a woman in her nineties whose statement the police had discounted. They thought she was senile. And while it was true that the woman’s memory wasn’t what it once was, she wasn’t suffering from dementia.
She had told the first police officers on the scene that the little girl had been taken by a ghost. The old woman was right. A hospital worker named Elijah Ghost was ultimately charged with the crime when he was arrested on a drunk driving charge. His thumbprint matched the partial print found on the murdered child’s shoe.
The old woman had recognized Ghost, having once been a neighbor of the family when Elijah Ghost was a boy. She told the police as much. She just hadn’t been sure which of the three Ghost brothers she had seen. She was unaware that one of Elijah’s brothers had died and that the other one was in the navy and thousands of miles away on a ship.
Because of her age, the cops never took her seriously and assumed that she was talking about the type of ghost that was a spirit, not a flesh and blood man. Ghost’s DNA was found to be better than a 99% match with the DNA found at the crime scene. If there were any further doubts that Eric Reed was innocent, they had been obliterated.
Lawsuits followed. While they were making their way through the courts, Reed experienced more good fortune. The two girls who were involved in Reed’s indecent exposure incident had grown up and become college students. From watching the news, they became aware that Reed was the young man they’d had the encounter with in the woods when they were children. They had been shocked to learn that he was on the registry for sex offenders. They insisted that they had told their parents and the authorities at the time that Reed had looked startled when he saw them and had zipped up his fly immediately.
They claimed that their parents must have overreacted and pressed charges. As children under the age of ten, they hadn’t known about the legal proceedings and had faint memories of being interviewed by several men in uniforms and suits.
Reporters following Reed’s case interviewed the young women and it became clear that Reed had been a victim of the justice system more than once. By the time the lawsuits were settled, Reed was acknowledged to be innocent, his name was removed from the sex offender’s registry, and he was awarded damages in the high six-figure range. He was also offered a book deal to write about his experiences in the legal system. The book was scheduled to be released in the spring.
“Why do the police suspect Reed this time?” Jessica asked Elena.
“A police dog led them to his neighborhood, which is a cul-de-sac and bordered by acres of trees at its rear.”
“Did the dog zero in on Reed’s home?” White asked.
“He was heade
d in that direction when it began to rain hard and lost the scent. The dog has a fantastic record of being correct and the police trust it. Despite Reed’s exoneration over a past allegation of sexual assault, the police haven’t ruled him out.”
“Do you think he’s guilty?” Jessica asked Elena.
“It doesn’t seem likely, but again, you can’t rule it out. However, I think a likelier suspect is one of Reed’s neighbors, a man named Ben Wagner. Mr. Wagner was accused of attempting to seduce his eleven-year-old babysitter last year. The story made the news briefly but disappeared after money changed hands between Wagner and the girl’s parents.”
“A babysitter. I guess that means he has children?” Jessica said.
“An eight-month-old daughter. However, Mr. Wagner is forty-one and his wife is only fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” White said.
“She was only fourteen when she had the baby. Wagner married her with the consent of her mother. Soon after, the mother moved out of the trailer park she’d been living in and into one of the units of an apartment house Wagner owns. She also quit her job and receives a monthly check from her son-in-law, who is older than she is.”
“Why aren’t the police focused on him instead of Reed?” Jessica asked.
“They’re probably interested in both men. But the police dog led them to Reed’s side of the street. And let’s be honest, Reed’s lawyer was vicious in her remarks about law enforcement during her interviews to the media. If there’s even a remote chance that Reed could be arrested and have the charges stick, the police will make that happen.”
“Where does Samantha fit in?”
“All of the rape victims were blondes with blue eyes between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Wagner’s child bride is blonde, as was the babysitter he tried to seduce. Samantha would make perfect bait for Wagner, or whoever is raping these girls. Through PREY, I’ve bought a house that was available in the cul-de-sac. I want Samantha to pretend to be one of the new neighbors. With her beauty, I’m betting that Wagner won’t be able to resist her. Once he makes a move, we’ll know we have our man and he’ll be handled appropriately.”
“He’ll be killed,” White said. It was a statement.
“Absolutely,” Elena said.
“What happens if no one approaches Samantha?” Jessica asked.
“She’ll return here, and I’ll leave people in place to observe and follow Wagner. In fact, there are already PREY operatives doing that now.”
Jessica looked at her husband. “What do you think?”
“I’ll agree to it as long as Samantha is protected well.”
“Cassandra will be looking out for her, and so will Kelly. Cassandra and Kelly are already camped out inside the house keeping an eye on Wagner.”
White nodded. “Cassandra and Kelly are good choices and should be enough, but I’ll want Samantha armed as well. I don’t want her defenseless if something goes wrong.”
Jessica was wringing her hands. “I’m torn on the subject of arming Samantha. I don’t want her to be the one who kills the rapist. On the other hand, she needs to be able to defend herself.”
Elena looked back and forth between them. “I’ll do whatever you two decide, but I agree that Samantha should be armed. If not with a gun, then with a blade.”
Jessica sighed. “Give her a gun. I wouldn’t want to risk her only wounding her attacker and being injured afterward.”
“She’ll be responsible,” White said. And Jessica nodded her agreement.
“This can stay between the three of us for now,” Elena said. “When we get closer to the holiday break, I’ll ask Samantha if she’ll be willing to do it. I’m hoping that it won’t be necessary. If Wagner attempts to harm another child between now and then, Cassandra and Kelly will handle him.”
“Let’s hope that happens,” Jessica said.
Elena left after staying a few minutes longer, and Jessica went into the kitchen to make dinner, while White went to his office to do more work on the new app he was developing.
Up on the stairway’s landing, Samantha sat smiling, having overheard their conversation with Elena. It looked like she would soon get another chance to hunt.
Chapter 10
Kent Ballou smiled more in the days after scoring his six-million-dollar heist than he ever had before. As he’d done since the beginning, he stuck to his plan and kept working at the rooming house. If he took off suddenly and someone came by to check on him, it might place him on a list of serious suspects.
No cops came by. After three weeks, Ballou believed that they wouldn’t bother. He was right. The cops never approached him, but two FBI agents stopped by to question him as he was sweeping the stairs.
One of them was a woman with a large nose and a humorless face. She was introduced as Agent Fennelly. Her male partner was a tall, good-looking guy in his thirties who Ballou could tell was sharp. He was Agent Robert Bentley. Bentley was assigned to find the Smiling Bandit. He made an unusual request of Ballou.
“You want to take a picture of my teeth?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Do you consent, or do we need to come back with an order from a judge?”
Ballou wondered what was going on. They wanted a picture of his teeth. What the hell was that about?
“This is an odd request, Agent Bentley, you know?”
“But if you have nothing to hide or have done nothing wrong, then you should have nothing to worry about either. Show me your teeth, I’ll take a picture, and then Agent Fennelly and I will be out of your hair.”
Ballou stared at the man as he struggled to come up for an answer as to why they would want to see his teeth. He knew that dental imprints could be as unique and identifiable as fingerprints, but he hadn’t left any bite marks behind anywhere.
He could refuse and tell them that he wanted to speak to a lawyer first, but that would only make them more interested in him. Ballou shrugged and opened his mouth wide.
Agent Bentley shook his head. “Not like that. We need you to give us a big smile.”
Ballou complied with the agent’s request and felt like an ass smiling at people he’d rather see dead.
There was a subtle change in Agent Bentley’s demeanor that made Ballou nervous. For some reason the man seemed more interested in him.
Bentley left with his silent partner and Ballou went back to sweeping the stairs.
The Feds returned hours later accompanied by two cops. Ballou had been outside in front of the building talking to one of the tenants about a rent hike Mr. Kiley had instituted. The longtime tenant, Fred Dinkle, thought it was unfair. Kiley was asking for five percent more. He hadn’t raised the rent in over six years. Dinkle was fat and a chain smoker. He wore loud, checkered sports coats, always smelled like a used ashtray, and often had powdered sugar in his patchy beard. Ballou hoped that he would fight Kiley on the rent hike and be evicted. Not only was the man smelly but he liked to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong. Dinkle was the only one of twelve tenants who ever came down into the basement to bug him. The others all waited until they saw him in the halls or outside the building to make a request. Ballou had once caught him in the area of the basement that was his tiny apartment. Dinkle smiled nervously when discovered and said that he always wondered what the space looked like. Ballou had considered then if Dinkle suspected him of committing the robberies and was looking for the money. But no, the man was just nosy.
Bentley explained that they wanted Ballou to come in for a police lineup. If he said no, they would bring him in for questioning.
“About what? I haven’t done anything.”
“Where were you when that double armored car robbery went down?”
Ballou shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I was here working.”
Dinkle, nosy as ever, was still standing nearby and spoke up. “No you weren’t, Kent. I went looking for you that day to tell you that I changed my mind about what color I wanted my room
painted and you weren’t here, so I left a note on the basement door.”
Ballou could have strangled the fat bastard. He managed to hide his anger and looked confused instead.
“I wasn’t here?”
“Not until later.”
Ballou snapped his fingers. “Ah, that was the day I went to the movies.”
“Which theater?” Agent Bentley asked.
Ballou told him and Bentley wrote down the information in a small notebook he’d taken from an inside pocket of his suit jacket. When he was done, he glared at Ballou.
“Are you coming in willingly or do we need to cuff you?”
Ballou went with them and said nothing during the ride to the police station. Once there, he was placed in an interrogation room alone and told to wait. Twenty-eight minutes later a cop he hadn’t seen before escorted him to another room with a long one-way mirror. There were five other men inside already. It was time for the police lineup. The men were asked to say the words, “I have a gun.” Once each man had repeated the words, they were told to stand close to the mirror. When everyone was in position, they were ordered to smile wide. The last thing Ballou felt like doing was grinning. A sick feeling had begun to form in his gut.
When the lineup was finished, Ballou was placed back inside the interrogation room. Agent Bentley entered seconds later and sat across from him.
“We have a witness who says you’re the man who robbed the armored cars in Illinois.”
Ballou didn’t have to pretend to look shocked. He was certain that the phony beard, mirrored sunglasses, and fake tattoo had altered his appearance enough so that there was no way the two guards could have recognized him.
“You can’t have a witness because I’m not the man you’re after. Would I still be working the crappy job I have if I had stolen millions weeks ago?”
“You might be waiting until the heat died down. It would also make you look less guilty. If we had come to get you and found that you had left the day after the robbery, you would have made yourself a person of interest in the case.”
Past Imperfect Page 9
