Eleven (Brandon Fisher FBI Series #1)

by Carolyn Arnold

  My room was number eleven, and after today, I felt a twinge of superstition as I turned the key in the lock. I dropped my luggage bag on the bed and it didn’t make an impression. Placing my hands on the mattress, the bed was hard, but I was so tired I doubted it would matter.

  When I had left yesterday afternoon, I had told Deb I wasn’t sure when I’d be home. She wished me luck, but I sensed insincerity in her tone of voice and body language. She had braced up against the doorframe as she normally would to wave goodbye. But as I had pulled out of the driveway, she never did.

  I fished my personal cell from a pocket in the bag. Four missed calls and two messages. One was from my friend Randy who I hung out with back in Florida. Hearing him made me homesick. Debbie had called three times and only left one message consisting of two words, call me.

  I looked at the time on the alarm clock. Nine-thirty.

  I dropped onto the bed and dialed home.

  CHAPTER 11

  Loud banging on the door startled me from sleep straight into a seated position. The clock read five-fifteen.

  What the hell happened to the alarm? Shit!

  I opened the door to Jack who was dressed in black slacks with a silver shirt. He looked down, making me realize I was just in boxer shorts. “Rise and shine, Kid.”

  “Just give me five minutes.”

  “Hmm.”

  I closed the door on him and hurried around the room trying to see if I could beat some sort of record at getting dressed. I went into the washroom and wiped a fingertip across my teeth. I needed to brush them, but I didn’t have time. I think I had gum.

  Five minutes later, I opened the door to see the rest of the team assembled in the parking lot. They all had coffee cups in their hands. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the lights mounted to the hotel cast the only illumination.

  “Decided to return after all, Pending?”

  I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth, realizing the moment I drank coffee the refreshing effect would be compromised. Oh well.

  “Sleeping beauty must have slept good, boss.”

  “There was a problem with my alarm.” I wanted to add a bit of flare to the statement, possibly add knucklehead but I resisted the urge.

  “Next time make sure there isn’t.” Jack headed to the driver’s seat. “I want us all back at the crime scene. I want us to study it, breathe it, and analyze it. Until some other people wake up there’s not much else we can do.”

  “Course, boss.” Zachery and Paige got into the other SUV and drove out before Jack even had the keys in the ignition of ours.

  The day was going to be a scorcher, and the rain from the night before only seemed to intensify the humidity. All I wanted was the vehicle’s AC on.

  Jack did up his seat belt and faced me. “There’s a few things that bother me. One of them is tardiness.”

  “My alarm—”

  “I don’t want excuses.”

  I buried my sour facial expression into the lip of the coffee cup and took a sip.

  As we pulled into Bingham’s driveway, any hunger that had my stomach growling ceased. Instead it churned thinking of what lay beneath the ground—the tunnels, the burial chambers, the victims who had been tortured and murdered—all of it had etched permanent residence into my memory.

  Two deputies were in charge to watch the place. They waved us past while they stayed in their cruiser, likely comfortable in the car’s air conditioning.

  We let ourselves in and headed to the cellar. My chest tightened thinking about going further down, but we stalled there to talk. I took a deep breath.

  Jack had an unlit cigarette perched in his mouth, even though he had smoked one on the way over. “Now, I thought it would be best to immerse ourselves in Bingham’s and our unsub’s state of mind. What do we know about Bingham, The Redeemer, as he terms himself?” He turned to me.

  The coffee hadn’t infused me with sufficient caffeine yet.

  “Time to wipe the sleep out of the eyes, Pending.”

  I disregarded Zachery and answered Jack. “We know that Bingham and his sister lost their father when he was twenty. The mother had died years before that.” Everyone watched me. “We know that he came to Salt Lick from Sarasota, Florida where he was born and grew up.”

  “His family life seemed normal, straight forward. At least what can be discerned from a file,” Paige said. “Unusual for a psychopath.”

  “What makes you conclude psychopath?” Jack turned to her.

  “You’re kidding right?”

  Jack’s sour expression disclosed he was serious. I remembered Jack had referred to Bingham as a psychopath yesterday. He must have wanted Paige to justify her conclusion.

  “Besides the violent nature of the murders and his disconnect from society? Brandon you said that he seemed proud someone was killing for him since he’s been in prison. He feels nothing for his victims.”

  “Psychopaths are normally of above-average intelligence. The construction of the underground passageways, the fact they didn’t collapse or meet up, tells us Bingham is intelligent. The unsub likely is too,” Zachery said.

  “He also exhibits psychopathic behavior including the art of manipulation.”

  I looked at Jack. “He did make you leave the room. It could also explain how he was able to get his victims to come with him and go down the passageway. He lured them with false charm perhaps?”

  Jack cast me a sideward glance, and said, “He saw you as someone he could manipulate. You’re younger than me, obviously a new agent. Special Agent.” Jack mocked my words from yesterday when I had corrected Bingham. “He saw your pride yet tried to demean you.”

  “I didn’t let him.”

  “Psychopath,” Paige said with a smile, trying to ease the tension between Jack and me.

  It seemed to have worked as Jack continued, “He wants to have control over everyone he comes across. He’s obsessive compulsive as evidenced by his fascination with the number eleven. OCD is a narcissistic trait, but he definitely exhibits characteristics of a psychopath. I got an email from Nadia last night that had more background info on Bingham. His mother was Robin Bingham and she married Lance’s father in forty-nine, a month after Lance was born. Now Bingham’s file doesn’t show any criminal activity prior to more recent events.”

  “He likely just wasn’t caught before now.”

  Jack nodded in agreement to Paige and opened the discussion to rest of us. “What about other narcissistic characteristics he displays?”

  “Bingham worked as a laborer for local farmers, helping out where he could. That aspect doesn’t sound like a narcissist,” I said.

  Paige latched eyes with me. Her next words would contradict my sentiment. “Mr. Thompson, a neighbor who Bingham did work for, commented yesterday that Lance would talk about a day when he’d have his own farm. His words were, then I won’t have to report to the likes of you.” Paige’s eyes read of an apology.

  “What about Twitter? He seeks contact, not necessarily a connection, with the outside world, but he doesn’t do so in order to learn what’s going on. He joins a social network where people can follow him, feed his ego, and make him feel important. That is typical narcissist.”

  Zachery’s eyes glazed over. “I know what he is. It makes perfect sense.”

  “By all means, share it with us.” Jack pulled the cigarette from his mouth.

  “He’s a malignant narcissist. They can demonstrate psychotic behavior and a schizoid personality. So Bingham’s really a concoction. His follower, the unsub, is likely submissive, easily manipulated. They likely idolize Bingham.”

  “I’ve heard of malignant narcissism, but isn’t it pretty hard to discern from regular narcissism?” Paige tested Zachery’s assessment.

  “Yes, in fact, while you’ll find narcissistic personality disorder defined in The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, you will not find malignant narcissism. These people are simply diagnosed as having a narcissistic personality d
isorder. But with the other factors we’ve discussed, it seems like a plausible fit to Bingham. A schizoid person usually prefers to isolate themselves. It doesn’t seem like Bingham had any close friends, and he wasn’t involved with anyone. Many schizoids prefer to masturbate over dealing with the complications and social aspects of finding a partner.”

  Paige’s face crunched up. “Prefer not to think about that part.”

  Zachery shrugged a shoulder.

  “Hmm.” Jack connected eyes with me before he turned and walked down the passageway. Zachery followed after him.

  I wasn’t sure how to read his eyes. Was he disappointed in my contribution about Twitter and connections? Should I have said more? Maybe I would have if given the time.

  Paige put a hand on my shoulder but shrunk back after making contact. “He was impressed by what you had to say.”

  “He didn’t sound it.”

  “If you’re looking for praise, and a good well done, you’ll never hear it.”

  “I thought whenever he said Hmm, it was a bad thing.”

  “It can be.” She smiled. “But you will get to recognize the difference.”

  “If you say so.” I took a deep breath and headed underground. Melding with the suffocating effect of confined spaces was the flash nightmares of Bingham’s sick perma-smile.

  In the main hub, Jack flicked his lighter and put it back in his pocket, more or less for something to do with his hands, I assumed. “Now the thing that’s been bothering me is why take out their intestines. They are enormous, and it would be messy.”

  “The large intestine alone is about five feet long. That’s not even mentioning the small intestine that is the length of twenty feet or more depending on the person. The basic math is roughly ten times longer than a person’s height.”

  All of us looked at Zachery.

  “The large intestine contains a type of bacteria that can break down molecules the human body can’t break down itself.”

  Paige’s face scrunched up. “I could have handled not hearing all of this.”

  “Oh that’s just the beginning—”

  “End of it, if I have any say. Disgusting. Do you really think Bingham and his follower ate the intestines? Why not the heart, brain, or other organs? Why where the shit passes through?”

  The coffee rose into the back of my throat. I swallowed quickly.

  “Maybe he didn’t eat the intestines,” Zachery said. “But then why remove them, why the grinder, and why the freezer?”

  None of us said anything. I focused on trying to breathe as my heart kept tapping as if preparing for a major heart palpitation. Paige crossed her arms, her eyes looking down a tunnel. Jack pulled out his lighter and flicked it again.

  “And here’s another question,” Zachery said. “Where are they now?”

  We spent the next hour and a half working the crime scene. Zachery was fascinated by the fact the area was so pristine given the bloodshed that would have transpired here. I kept trying to put that aspect out of my mind.

  We went down the fourth tunnel, and through the uncovered doorway that led to the kill room under Bingham’s bedroom.

  Being enclosed in this type of a prison ignited my compassion for the victims. The coroner had confirmed they were disemboweled while alive. Again, the threat Bingham had extended on my life gave the scene personal impact.

  Bingham never expressed any remorse, but in contrast joked about the fact that the intestines were removed. An innocent person, a normal person, when confronted with a find like that under their home would be disgusted and scared. They’d realize that it would likely only be a matter of time before they made it to death row. But Bingham was calm, even proud of being accused. How his smile had grown at the mention of someone following in his steps. He thought of himself as untouchable.

  Jack had sent an email to Nadia to research any unsolved cases that were similar to what we found here. He believed that Bingham killed before Salt Lick, Kentucky.

  “What would motivate him to kill these people?” I asked the question we were all contemplating.

  We were all standing in the kill room beside where the stretcher had been. It had been removed as evidence.

  “Sometimes we never get the why, Kid.”

  “Hope I’m not in-interrupting anything.” The accent pure Kentucky. Deputy White entered the room. “You feds git an early start to the day, don’t ya?”

  None of us said anything.

  “Anyway, the Sheriff’s upstairs. And there’s fresh coffee. We came by earlier, saw your fancy SUVs out front. Harris thought it’d be nice if we got y’all a coffee and came back.”

  “Thank you,” Paige said, offering a sincere smile.

  At this point she looked like she had a rough night’s sleep. Her eyeliner was applied a bit thicker, her lids painted heavier.

  “How’s things goin’ anyhow?”

  “We think we have an ID on the first vic. Jones still has to confirm.” Jack offered the information.

  White’s feet twisted in the dirt as he glanced back down the tunnel where he came from. He aligned his eyes with Jack’s. “And who’s that?”

  “Travis Carter, Bingham’s brother-in-law.” Jack watched the man’s reaction closely.

  White’s mouth formed an “O”.

  “You knew him I take it.”

  “I believe most of us deputies did.” He continued, realizing all of our eyes were on him. “He beat up on Lori. Now she never filed any charges, but it was d-def-definitely Travis that did the damage to her.”

  Jack turned to me. “I guess Ellie’s precious son would after all.”

  I took a deep breath. I had likely met the family of a victim. My eyes welded to where the stretcher had been, where the victims had been constrained and forced to stay for a period of days, while Bingham mutilated and eventually disemboweled them.

  The deputy twisted his feet again, jacked a thumb over his shoulder. “Well, that coffee ain’t gettin’ any fresher.”

  Sheriff Harris stood in what had served as Bingham’s living room, but it was only a rusted color floral sofa, an old tube television, and fold-up TV tray for eating over.

  “Good mornin’ y’all. Fresh coffee.” Harris held onto a coffee cup and lifted a finger to point toward the counter in Bingham’s kitchen. “At least it was twenty minutes ago.”

  “They think they know who the first victim was,” Deputy White paused to take a draw on his coffee. It was quiet enough in the room to hear his thick moustache hairs scrape the plastic lid. He pulled back from the cup slowly. “Travis Carter.”

  “Travis?” Sheriff Harris’s legs gave slight way, buckling him down a few inches in height.

  Paige stepped toward him. “Sheriff?”

  He held up a hand to her. “I knew the boy since he was knee high to a grasshopper. It was terrible what he did to his lady, but he was a misled young man.” Harris matched eyes with me. “He only knew what he was taught.”

  “His father abused his mother?”

  Harris nodded. “All the time. And Ellie was a good lady, still is.”

  Jack fished a cigarette out of the package, lit up, and looked at me. “Ellie lied to us.”

  Deputy White’s eyes flashed with disdain, snapping to the amber butt.

  Harris spoke up, “Well, if she did, it was for a damn good reason.”

  “You consider any reason good enough to justify lying to a federal agent?” Jack exhaled a puff of white away from the group of us.

  “I’m not saying that. All I was sayin’ is she’d have a good reason.”

  “To protect her involvement?”

  I noticed Paige’s and Zachery’s heads turn. Even they seemed surprised by Jack’s lack of candor. It made me think of what he told me, sometimes you have to play dirty to get the answers you need. We’re not Special Agents to make friends, we’re not here to bring healing to the world, we’re here to bring the guilty to justice and make them accountable. Dramatically, he had taken a drag o
n his cigarette after the speech.

  “That’s insanity. Why would she kill her own son?”

  “It doesn’t mean she took part, maybe she knows something she’s not telling us.”

  “Why am I feeling attacked?”

  “Why should you feel that way, Sheriff?”

  The Sheriff took a draw on his coffee, swirled it around his mouth before swallowing it. “Ellie and I, well, we was a couple. Now that’s a while back now, before her dead husband. Can’t believe she picked him over me. Anyway, I jus’ know her is all.”

  “Hmm.”

  And there was the sentiment again. I thought back to how he responded that way to me. Maybe there was a difference to the inflection. This time Jack’s fix on the man cemented the fact he held suspicions of something. Hmm stood for he wasn’t buying it.

  “Anyway, the county would like to treat you to breakfast if you’re interested. Your whole team.” He swept a hand out to encompass all of us.

  “We don’t have time.”

  “You don’t have time to eat? Wow, you city folk really don’t take time for nuthin’ do ya?” He laid a splayed hand over his round stomach. “How’s a man, or woman—” he smiled at Paige, “—s’posed to survive without fuel in his system?”

  Jack looked at all of us and after thirty seconds nodded his approval for breakfast. I found myself thankful as all the talk of food had made my hunger return.

  “We have to make it quick.”

  “But of course.” It was Sheriff Harris’s turn to add a sardonic nature to his statement.

  CHAPTER 12

  Deputy White had a way of pulling food off the fork with his teeth, not his lips; every mouthful was accompanied by a small scraping sound. For the first five forkfuls or so, I watched wondering if he’d take the hint as to how annoying the habit was. He didn’t seem to notice.

  “They’ve got the best flapjacks here.” The Sheriff cut off a triangle-shaped wedge, stuffed it into his mouth.