“True, but both should probably be done, either way. Sooner rather than later,” Ball said.
“Agreed,” I said. “I’ll call Agent Duffield in a second here and take his temperature on it. I’m just finishing up a late lunch right now.”
“What about the house the package was shipped from?”
“Duffield said that the family should be back tomorrow, so I think I’ll try to meet with them as soon as they’re back in the area.”
“Sure. Anything else? What about that latest abduction you told me about last night? Any news?”
“There is there, actually.” I told Ball about the video footage and the fact that it looked as though a cop was responsible. He didn’t seem to know what to make of that and left me with the instructions to leave it to the locals until we knew if it was connected one way or another.
“Okay,” Ball said. “When you talk to Beth later, have her give me a ring if she hasn’t already.”
“Will do.” I clicked off from the call and brought up the navigation on my phone. I entered the name of the newspaper and searched. The Louisville Press-Gazette showed as having eight different locations around the city—the closest being a few blocks, the farthest five miles or so. I realized I would need to look at the investigation file—which was in my car, parked at the meter around the block—to see which exact location was the one that had received the package. I dialed Agent Duffield.
He picked up within a couple of rings. “Agent Matt Duffield.”
“It’s Agent Rawlings. Hey, what are we thinking about a press conference on this?”
He let out a long breath. “It has to be done, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I guess I could put something together for tomorrow morning,” he said. Then he went silent for a bit before clearing his throat. “Yeah, it’s going to need to be done. We should have something out there before another package shows up. If we don’t, this could be all over the news and on the front page of every paper, and we’ll look bad for being behind it. We can’t assume another media outlet will handle it the same as the first newspaper.”
“I agree, and speaking of the paper, would you rather I wait until tomorrow to meet with anyone from the paper that the package was shipped to? Whoever I talk to could put two and two together and craft a story prior to us getting a press conference put together.”
“Well, it’s probably too late for anything to be put together for print tonight yet,” he said. “And they’d look pretty stupid with a speculation piece on the shelves in the morning when we give a press conference. You make the call.”
“Okay. What newspaper location actually received the package? I searched the place and came back with a bunch of locations.”
“One second—I’m grabbing a coffee from the lunchroom. Let me get back to my desk and get it for you.”
“Sure,” I said. “If it’s close, I’ll stop in and get it crossed off the list.”
“Right. Anything else go on out at the scenes?”
“Nothing. What are you guys working on back there?”
“Well, it looks like I’ll be putting together something for the press conference in the morning in a minute here. The tech guys are going over the video you dropped off. Aside from them trying to work a little magic on that footage to clean it up, I figured we’d try to get back into all the other footage we previously collected.”
“Previous footage?” I asked.
The waitress passed and left a black padded-leather folder at the edge of my table. I gave her a smile and a nod.
“Just the stuff we came up blank with on the first go-around,” Duffield said. “We had some traffic-cam recordings and the video from the bars these girls were last seen at. We’re going to try to see if we can get anything that looks like an on- or off-duty patrol car outside or a police officer inside the establishments. That’s kind of a shot in the dark there, seeing that we don’t know if it’s the same guy. Aside from that, I put a couple people on seeing if anyone local has sold any wooden plates for mounts or where the hell you could buy green glass eyes.”
“I dabbled in looking into the glass-eyeball thing,” I said. “Not an easy thing to acquire, apparently.”
“We’re finding that out. Hell, I don’t know. Just trying to keep my guys busy—maybe it will lead somewhere. Okay. I’m back at my desk. The package was shipped to their main office downtown on West Broadway. Need the address?”
I took the phone from my ear and looked at the map of locations, which I still had up. “No, I have it on the map here. I’m only a couple blocks away from it.”
“All right,” Duffield said. “So you’re going to stop in there, then?”
“May as well.”
“Maybe let them know that we’re going to have a press conference in the morning. Ask them nicely to keep a lid on it until then. If you get the feeling that they won’t, maybe ask them not so nicely.”
“Got it,” I said.
“Anything else?”
“That’s all I need right now. I’m going to head over to the paper and then shoot back out to the field office. Was there a name of anyone associated with the paper that I should look for?”
“The report lists an Andrew Shalagin. It doesn’t say what his position is there, though.”
I wrote the name in my notepad. “Okay. I’ll figure it out. How late are you sticking around the office?”
“I’ll be here until six thirty or seven,” Duffield said.
I took a look at the time. “I’ll be back there before then. We’ll talk in a bit.”
“Sure,” Duffield said.
I clicked off, paid my tab, and left the diner. In my rental car, I clicked the button on my phone to take me to the paper. The drive, as I was told by the navigation’s robotic voice, took me just a bit over two minutes. I found the building, noticed a parking lot at its side, pulled in, and found a spot. I took my bag with the investigation file from the backseat and walked toward the main entrance.
As I rounded the corner from the parking lot, I looked up at the old six-or-seven-story tan stone building. I figured it had been built in the nineteen thirties or so, from the outside architecture. The windows were green glass, and near the front entrance, the corner of the building curved as opposed to being square. Toward the top of the building, six stories up from the main entrance, was a large clock inlaid in the stone. To the right of the clock were the words Louisville Press-Gazette in greenish copper lettering. I took my notepad from my pocket, memorized the name of the man I was looking for, and walked through brass doors set back into a copper alcove that featured an artwork relief. My feet clacked across the marble floors as I found my way to the front counter. I stuffed my notepad back into my pocket and removed my credentials.
An older white-haired woman wearing too much perfume, a flowered blouse, and a beaded necklace stared back at me. “How can I help you?” she asked.
“Hello. My name is Agent Hank Rawlings with the FBI.” I flashed her my credentials and stuffed them back into my pocket. “I’m looking to speak with an Andrew Shalagin.”
“Sure, is Mr. Shalagin expecting you?”
The fact that she referred to him as mister told me he was some kind of higher-up at the paper.
“No. I was in the area,” I said.
“Okay. Um, let me give his office a ring and see if he’s in.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The woman lifted her phone and punched a few numbers into the keypad. I gave her my back while she made the call and could hear her speaking in a low tone behind me. The receptionist informed whoever was on the line that an FBI agent was looking to speak with Mr. Shalagin, adding that I hadn’t given a reason for my visit. The phone clicked back onto its base a second later.
“Sir,” she said.
I turned back to face her.
“Mr. Shalagin is actually in a meeting at the moment. Did you want to wait or maybe schedule something?”
“I’m ki
nd of tight for time. Is there maybe a manager or someone from your mail room that I could speak with?”
“Mail room?” she asked.
“Correct,” I said.
She looked confused. “Let me make a call quick.”
“Appreciate it.”
I watched as she picked up the phone, said a few words, and hung up.
“You can take the elevator there. Just hit the B button, and it will take you down. Off the elevator, just walk forward to the first office on your left. You’ll be looking for Ethan Bracknall.”
“Thank you.” I headed for the brass elevator with an analog display of what floor the car was currently on—four in that case.
I hit the button to take me down, waited, and allowed the people on the elevator to get out before I stepped on. The ride down was short but filled with the standard elevator music for my listening pleasure. The doors opened, exposing the lower level of the building, which wasn’t what I was expecting. What I expected to see was newspaper machinery, people buzzing about, a mail room filled with people, and papers everywhere—what I actually saw was gray carpet, white walls, a hallway with a couple of offices, and some cubicles with people farther inside the room.
I walked to the first office on my left. The white door with the glass window was closed. In black lettering, it read Ethan Bracknall on the door’s glass. I rapped on the door with my knuckles, and the man seated at the desk waved me in.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Walk, dog,” William said. He yanked at the chain attached to the shackles on Erin’s wrists.
Erin mumbled something at him through the ball gag in her mouth. While his nearest neighbor was almost a quarter mile away, he still preferred Erin to not be screaming the entire time he had her outdoors.
William had taken her for a lap around his wooded backyard—mostly pulling her along as the shackles around her ankles only allowed her to take steps of a couple inches at a time.
William looked up at the sky, which was a shade of gray, and then at the backside of his home and the sliding glass doors leading directly into the basement. “Let’s go,” he said with another yank. He felt dead weight at the end of the chain. William turned back toward Erin to see her lying on the ground. “I said let’s go. Your outdoor time is through. Get a good look, take a couple of deep breaths, and breathe the air in. Listen to the birds and wind. Feel the grass against your body. This could be the last time you’re ever outdoors.”
Erin stared downward, not facing William. From the movement of her body, she appeared to be crying.
William walked to her and crouched down. “But you talk so tough. Am I seeing little chinks in your armor? This is what you get. I warned you.”
She lifted her head and stared him in the face. Her eyes were pink and wet with tears. Through the ball gag, she mumbled what sounded like “I’m sorry.”
William smirked. “Nice try. Way too late for that. Now get up and shuffle your ass back toward the house, or I’m going to drag you by the chains. I have things to do.”
Erin made no attempt to get to her feet.
“Suit yourself,” William said.
He looped the chain around his right forearm and took it in both hands. He took a few steps backward toward his house while pulling at the chain attached to her wrists. Erin flopped flat onto her belly, arms outstretched together. William pulled again, dragging her a few feet across his lawn. She still didn’t attempt to get to her feet. He grumbled and put one foot behind the other, dragging her across a scrappy quarter acre of old grass, twigs, and patches of dirt. He stopped at the concrete slab at the rear patio doors. William kept hold of the chain and took a seat on one of the old railroad ties that bordered the concrete patio, sucking in lungfuls of air. Erin moaned and writhed in the grass.
“I told your ass to walk,” William said. He let out a huge puff of air and pulled another in. “Now, get up. You won’t like it if I have to pull you up the concrete and back into the house.”
She mumbled and moaned for a bit before putting a skinned knee underneath her and pushing herself up to her feet.
William looked at Erin—naked with scrapes and dirt covering her front side.
“You could have avoided that if you weren’t so stupid.” He rose to his feet and tugged at the chain. “Come on, back in your crate.”
William slid open the patio door and walked her back inside. He stopped her at the lounge chair in the main room of the basement and placed a hood over her head. William led her through the rest of the basement, back into the laundry room. He put her in front of himself, gave her a shove, and then stuck a foot into the back of her knee, dropping her to the ground.
He pulled the hood from her head. “Crawl your ass back inside. You know the drill.”
She crawled into the cage, and William locked the door. Erin placed her shackled wrists against the metal bars, and William undid the chain and removed it from her enclosure.
“Turn. Back against the bars,” he said.
She obeyed, and William removed the gag from her mouth.
He pulled it through the bars and tossed it to the ground. “Did you enjoy your walk?” William asked.
“Screw you.”
“No thanks,” William said. “I thought you just told me you were sorry. Now you’re back to being tough?”
“I can’t wait until someone comes busting in. The thought of you rotting in jail makes me all warm and fuzzy.”
“You really think that there’s a chance you’ll make it out of this, don’t you?”
“I know I will.”
“Well, I’d get to praying or whatever you have to do. I’m thinking tomorrow will be your last day.”
“You keep saying that. Tomorrow will be your last day. Soon this will be over. Enjoy your meal—it will be your last. This is the last time you’ll be outside,” she mimicked sentence after sentence. “You’re so full of shit. That’s fine, though. The longer you do this, the better my chances get.”
“I have a sneaking suspicion that you’ll soon think differently,” he said.
“Whatever, William.”
“Okay. I have some things to go and take care of. You be a good bitch and sit in your cage.” William took a step toward the door.
“I hope you get violated in prison.”
William shook his head. “Wow, comments like that make me totally want to rethink my plans. You know, because you’re such a good person and totally undeserving of what’s in your future.” He scratched at his beard stubble. “Erin, do you remember what I said to you right before I left the station in California?”
“Probably some asshole remark. I don’t know.”
“Think about it. Your response was quote, I’d like to see that. And then you called me pathetic.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“Remember?” he asked. “Remember what I told you I was going to do?”
“Yeah, you said, I’m going to mount your bitch head over my fireplace.”
“There you go. I’ll let you stew on that for a bit. Really think about it for a while. Think about everything I’ve said to you and everything you’ve heard. I’m going to show you something a little bit later that I think you’ll appreciate. Enjoy your cage.”
William walked from the room and closed the door at his back. A smile crept across his face.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I closed the door of the office at my back, and its glass window rattled. “Ethan Bracknall?” I asked.
He stood from his chair and walked around his desk. “You found me.” He held out a hand for a handshake, which I took. The man looked like he was pushing fifty with a gray buzz-cut, a blue button-up shirt, and jeans.
“Hank Rawlings, FBI,” I said.
“Sure, what can I do to help?” He motioned for me to have a seat and then returned to his.
I sat down and put my bag beside my chair. I looked past him at the wall behind his desk and noticed multiple photos of him hunting. He took a dri
nk from his coffee mug, which had an American flag printed on the side.
“I wanted to talk a bit about the package that came in last week.”
“The film and letter?” he asked.
“Correct,” I said.
“What did you want to know?”
“Just the process from when it arrived, who handled it, and how the decision was made to contact the authorities.”
“Sure. Well, our mail here at the paper gets delivered in a push cart from the postman. He wheels it in through the back”—he jerked his head to reference someplace behind him—“and then our mail guys sort through it all by floor and take it upstairs to distribute it. Anything that’s unaddressed goes into a separate bin and gets looked through after all the staff deliveries are made.”
“Is getting unaddressed mail and packages commonplace?” I asked.
“Well, we get any number of letters a day that come in unaddressed. The packages would be a little rarer. The contents can be anything from fan mail for the column writers to potential news stories. At least once every few years, we’ll get something that comes that’s real news sent from an anonymous source. Basically, we just sift through the unaddressed stuff when we have the time and there’s nothing else pressing. Sometimes, it sits for a few days.”
“Was that the case in this instance?” I asked.
“Nah, pretty sure that one was same day.”
“Okay, and the person who found the package? Who was that?”
“Temp worker named Zack Morton,” he said. “Little wiry kid that started here a few months back. He found it, sorting through the mail, and brought it directly to me.”
I took my notepad from my pocket. While I didn’t know if Zack Morton’s name was in my file or not, I wrote it down.
“Is this Zack here?” I asked.
“He is.”
“Okay, I’ll need to talk to him after you and I are through.”
“Sure,” he said.
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