by C. M. Sutter
“All the details and instructions are laid out on the paperwork inside. Follow the instructions to the letter, don’t improvise a single detail, and you’ll be fine. We’ll meet back here tomorrow night to hear your reports and to give updates. The grand finale will take place soon.”
With the meeting out of the way and each recruit with their instructions, Jacob gave Erik a subtle nod, and everyone dispersed.
As the group walked out, Jacob overheard Erik suggesting that he and Brandon go have breakfast together.
Chapter 12
We gathered in the conference room at eight thirty, each with a cup of coffee in front of us and the half-full carafe centered on the table. Taft was kind enough to bring in two dozen assorted doughnuts, I imagined to compensate us for working through the entire weekend.
Lying at Maureen’s left was a folder that more than likely contained the autopsy reports for each of the five victims. The manner of death would be identical for all of them. That, we already knew. The time of death was what we needed to narrow down, and hopefully, Dave had been able to do just that.
“Good morning, Agents.” Taft gave us a courtesy nod. “Help yourselves to the doughnuts, and then we’ll get the ball rolling. Before we go over the reports that Dave and his team provided me, let’s hear any updates that may be of value from when you went back to the crime scenes.”
Renz told the group about our encounter with Brandon Dalton and said that while it took us time to question the man and we’d gotten a suspicious vibe from him, we had nothing to charge him with. Kyle and Charlotte had been tasked to our second location, the vacant lot, since we were involved with Brandon at the time. Kyle said they’d watched the gas station videos from last night, but none of the cameras caught that piece of land, and the surrounding buildings blocked what might have been a view anyway. They’d seen people on the sidewalk pass by the cameras, but the darkness and distance made it impossible to tell whether they were looking at men or women. No one else had anything to add.
Taft’s expression showed her disappointment. “Okay, then we’ll move on to the medical examiner’s findings. Dave and his team were kind enough to work through the night so we’d have the results in time for this meeting.” She waited while the guys chose a second doughnut and placed them on their paper plates. Once they were settled, she continued. “I’ve already reviewed these reports, so I’ll just pass along the information that’s relevant in establishing a perpetrator or several of them. First, every wound appeared to be caused by the same, if not the identical, type of knife. Every point of entry was on the victim’s left side of the throat and sliced to the right, meaning the killer was right-handed. That also means the killer was at the victim’s rear, pulled their head back, and inflicted the fatal wound. That leads me to believe the attacker either subdued the victim in advance or sneaked up behind them.” She glanced down at the papers and sighed. “Okay, so the manner of death, the left-to-right injury, and the weapon of choice is identical for each victim. Now, moving on to the time of death. We’ve already established the location where each body was found, and from farthest point to farthest point across the city, we have a fifteen-mile drive. That’s a significant distance considering it appears that each victim was a convenience kill and not a targeted hit. The killer, or killers, had to be in position at a homeless camp, choose their victim, and then commit the crime. It would seem like an overwhelming task for less than three people since we already know that two of the victims were killed within minutes of each other around the two a.m. hour.”
I felt like we should be taking notes, but I knew Taft had already printed out copies of the reports for all of us. All we needed to do was listen.
She continued. “The absolute tightest time frame Dave could give me by the degree of rigor and a more precise body temperature for each victim was that death occurred between one and three a.m. So again, that would be pretty ambitious for two killers. I’m sure we’re dealing with three perps, possibly more, and a well-coordinated and planned attack. The question, and the one we’re all likely thinking, is why?” Taft opened the floor for a brainstorming session.
I began with what we’d experienced most often in the past—the mindset that homeless people and prostitutes were dispensable. Law enforcement frequently looked the other way simply because family members weren’t pressing for answers or a conviction. Oftentimes, family didn’t know about the incident, there was no way to contact them, or those same family members had already severed ties with the victim. Also, in many cases, the victim was an unknown, without an ID or fingerprints on record. “So either the killers were out for a joyride to kill for the sake of killing, there was a coordinated attack as Maureen suggested, but that seems like too much planning to just go after homeless people if they were looking for shock value, or—”
Tommy took over. “Or it was only a practice session for something bigger.”
Renz squeezed his temples then groaned. “I have to agree with Tommy. Those attacks weren’t about the homeless people at all. I think they were being used as guinea pigs.”
Kyle pulled back. “For what purpose?”
“To see if the killers had the balls to carry out the plan. To see if that particular method of murder was a good one, and to see if they could get the timing right. Something bigger is going down soon, and as of right now, we have absolutely no idea what that ‘bigger’ event is going to be.”
“Are there any dignitaries coming to town?” Fay asked.
Maureen jabbed the air and pointed at all of us. “Good question, and now would be a great time to start taking notes. Mike, get ahold of the mayor’s office and find out if anyone important is coming to Milwaukee in the next week or so. Carl, see if any banks have big money transfers coming up. Charlotte, find out if high-profile convicts are being moved. Kyle, I want you to check into jewelry or high-end art coming into or leaving the city.” She swirled her finger. “Yada, yada, yada—you get the point. Start racking your brains and come up with the answer as to why somebody would plan a precisely timed attack and on whom.”
We filed out of the conference room with plenty of tasks to do and questions to answer. It was beginning to look like a far more nefarious plan could be shaping up, and it had nothing to do with homeless people. The lead from Ray was helpful, but the questions we’d posed to Brandon Dalton had gotten us nowhere. He’d claimed that he had the freedom to walk around anywhere he liked, which was true, and we had to release him. Something about the kid stuck in my craw, and besides his narcissistic arrogance and criminal anger issues, he had an attitude that was deeper and much darker. I felt it in my gut and knew we needed to find out more about him.
Back at my desk, I pulled my phone closer and pressed the button for the forensic department. We needed that update about the prints possibly belonging to Brandon and whether anything of evidentiary value was found in the tent city area.
“Forensics, Leah speaking.”
“Leah, it’s Agent Monroe. Do you have the results back from the investigation at the overpass tent city murder?”
“Yes, but we didn’t get anything of value. Several dozen prints were loaded into IAFIS, and there weren’t any matches. I imagine most belonged to the homeless people living there. They dumpster dive on a regular basis, you know. The partials we dusted weren’t viable either. They were smudged or overlapped other prints.”
“Damn it. What about unusual findings on the ground, as if somebody accidentally dropped something that could have been important to them?”
“Sorry, Agent Monroe, but eighteen hours later, if something was there, a resident from the camp probably snatched it up.”
“Yeah, wishful thinking on my part. Okay, thanks.”
“You bet.”
I groaned in frustration as I placed the receiver back on the base.
“No luck?”
“Nope. Are five homeless people really dead ends?”
“Literally, yes, since we’ve concluded that the m
urders probably weren’t about them.”
“So their murders aren’t important?”
Renz frowned. “Of course they are, Jade, but in the dark, seedy world of living on the streets, murders happen often, and unfortunately, people grow numb to it.”
I shook my head. “That’s unacceptable.”
“Then what do you suggest? We have no suspects, witnesses, or reasons why those people were killed. We’ve already established that the murders weren’t about stealing from the homeless, taking their drugs or their cigarettes. It goes way beyond that. Between us and local law enforcement, we need to figure out the bigger picture. When we do, we’ll have the murderers, and they’ll be held accountable.”
I blew out a long breath. “Yeah, I know, but it makes me worry about people like Mary and Ray.”
“I hear you, and it’s sad to admit that there’s thousands of Marys and Rays scattered across the country.”
Minutes later, Renz’s phone rang. From what I could gather from his end of the conversation, he was talking to Taft. After scribbling something down in his notepad, he hung up and jerked his chin toward the door. “Since we weren’t given a task to work on, Taft wants us to join a police unit sitting at a scene on the south side. A delivery truck had a hard time getting through the alley because a car was illegally parked in the driving lane. The driver, already pissed off, banged on the door of the car after honking continuously with no response. He realized then that the man inside the car was either unconscious or dead. The alley isn’t far from a homeless camp, and Taft wants our eyes on it to see if we think there could be a connection.”
I grabbed my stuff. “Any noticeable injuries?”
“Car doors are locked and the officers couldn’t tell, but Taft wants us to take a look anyway.”
Chapter 13
The location was fifteen minutes northwest of our office. A small cluster of homes—post-World War II, when the building boom took place—sat on a stark street of cookie-cutter houses. Most were of the two-bedroom one-bath variety and a thousand square feet at most. Alleys ran behind each street of homes, and most of them had garage access.
Renz turned in to the alley behind Miller Street, where the car and man were supposedly located.
I pointed halfway down the block. “Right there. The lights are still flashing on the squad car.”
Renz parked in a visitors’ space, and the slab of concrete wedged between houses could accommodate up to four cars. We climbed out and crossed the alley to the squad car. A fifty-foot area of yellow tape temporarily surrounded the vehicle in question. When we approached, both squad car doors opened, and the officers stepped out. Renz made the introductions, and we asked for details as we followed them to the car.
After peering in the window and banging on the glass, all I could determine was that the occupant looked like a sleeping man. His head was slumped against his chest, and he didn’t move a muscle when I yelled out. “You think he’s dead? Maybe he’s sleeping off an all-night drinking binge.”
“All we know is what the delivery truck driver said when he called 911.”
“And that was?” Renz asked.
“That an unconscious or dead man was in a car in this alley. We spoke to the delivery truck driver for a few minutes, got his contact info, and reported our findings. I guess because the 911 report came in as a possible deceased person in a vehicle, and at that particular location, it triggered a call to your FBI supervisor.”
Renz gave the officer the go-ahead to break the passenger-side window so we could get in and figure out if the man was dead or just unconscious. We gloved up and stepped aside while the officer came forward with his glass breaker. With a hard thrust, he shattered the safety glass, and it spiderwebbed and buckled. Renz pulled it to the ground, unlocked the door, and climbed inside.
“Okay, let’s see what we have. Hey, buddy, you alive?”
I watched as Renz reached in and shook the unresponsive man by the shoulder then lifted his head.
“Shit! This isn’t good, Jade. Call Taft and tell her we need Forensics and Dave out here right away. This guy isn’t just stone-cold dead. He’s also Brandon Dalton.” Renz backed out of the car. “We have to leave things as they are until they get here. I don’t want to contaminate the scene.” He looked at the officers. “Meanwhile, let’s cordon off a hundred feet in each direction.”
A dozen scenarios passed through my mind as we waited. There was no way that Brandon’s death was a coincidence—the timing was too perfect. “Renz, if he was murdered, then that means somebody besides us was following him yesterday. They must have seen us with him and then watched as the police unit hauled him away.”
Renz kicked an empty soda can across the alley. It bounced into the bushes along a garage, where a cat sprang out, hissed, and disappeared around the corner. “Yeah, I was thinking along those lines, too, but then did that person kill him? If so, then they had to know each other.”
I approached the officer whose name tag had M. Knox on it. “Did either of you call in this car’s tag number?”
Knox said he had and that it was registered to an Elias Kotar, who’d reported it stolen three days prior.
I groaned. “Of course it was. Why can’t we catch a damn break?”
Renz frowned. “I thought we had a chance with Brandon being a real lead. Another day of digging into his background and what he was up to could have given us something to hold him on.”
I glanced at the car. “And he wouldn’t be sitting in there dead right now.”
Dave and the forensic team arrived a few minutes later and took up the rest of the visitor spots.
“What have we got other than the obvious reason I’m here?” Dave slid off the van’s seat and to the ground.
Leah Jasper and Terry Franklin, the county’s weekend forensic techs, were right behind him with their testing kits and camera.
“Dead man behind the wheel. He just happens to be somebody we questioned yesterday about the five homeless killings.”
Dave shook his head. “When it rains, it pours.”
I had to agree. We moved aside so the forensic techs could do their job before Dave took over the scene.
Leah busied herself with the camera while Terry dusted the door handles, steering wheel, seat belt latches, dash, trunk latch, and every surface that a hand or fingers might have touched.
“Uh, guys, did you see this?” Leah backed out of the car and waved us over.
“What have you got?” I asked.
“The back of the driver’s seat has a gunshot hole in it. There’s gunpowder residue in a three-inch circle around it. I imagine once you lift the body out, you’ll see a kill shot to his back and a very bloody seat behind him.”
“Damn it.” Renz rounded the car with me on his heels. He peered into the open rear door and looked at the obvious hole in the back of the driver’s seat. He backed out, let me take a look, then rubbed his forehead as we contemplated the scenario that might have taken place. “So, somebody either lay in wait inside the car and forced Brandon to drive here, or Brandon and whoever killed him were going somewhere together, ended up here, and then the other person used a ruse to climb into the back seat, possibly to get something, then shot Brandon.”
I let out an anxious breath. “We could make the scenario fit any narrative we want. What all of this is telling me, though, is that Brandon was involved in the killings and somebody took him out to keep him quiet.”
Renz called out to Dave. “We need a rough estimate on how long he’s been dead.” He turned to the officers. “When did the 911 call come in?”
Knox walked to his car, checked with the 911 dispatch, then crossed back to us. “The call was recorded at exactly eight twenty-two this morning. The driver thought he called around eight fifteen, but it’s always best to get the exact time from the 911 operator. People often miscalculate times.”
I knew that for a fact. People had the worst recall, even if it was just hours after an incident.
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Dave climbed into the car and did his initial analysis. He popped his head out a minute later. “This man has been dead less than two hours. Rigor is just starting to take hold, and his body temp is ninety-seven degrees, give or take. Of course, that’s speculative since it’s a field exam.”
I glanced at my watch—9:57. “So likely between seven thirty and eight thirty?”
“Sounds probable.” Dave called out to his assistant, Tyler, to bring over the gurney and a body bag. “Once we lift him out, we’ll be able to see the extent of his injury. Since there isn’t an exit wound, I’d venture to say the projectile is lodged in his body and likely tore up numerous organs and his rib cage.”
I grimaced at the thought, shielded my eyes, and did a three sixty of the alley. It was obviously daylight when Brandon was shot, a risky move in a residential neighborhood, but since it was a Sunday and early morning, there was less of a chance of being seen. I was hoping to see a camera somewhere but didn’t. “Do you think the seat and the cushioning it provided acted as a silencer of sorts?”
Leah fielded that question. “A thick foam cushion will indeed buffer the sound of a gunshot, so not only was the victim taken by surprise, but the blast was muffled too. The perp probably walked away within seconds, and nobody was the wiser.”
“That’s how I see it going down,” Renz said.
Dave tipped his head at Tyler then at us. “Ready to get him out?”
“Go ahead and lift him forward so Leah can snap a few pics of his back and the seat before you remove him from the car.”
Dave pulled Brandon forward, and Leah took a half dozen pictures. She nodded when she had enough. Brandon was lifted out of the car, turned onto his side on the gurney for observation and more pictures, then placed flat in the body bag. Dave zipped it up. “We’ll get him back to the office, clean him up, and try to retrieve that bullet.”
I turned to Leah. “We’re going to need your garage’s flatbed out here to pick up the car.”
