by Jim Laughter
“Truck gave these to you?” Keller asked.
“Yep. And Wheeler gave 'em to him.”
“Wheeler gave them to Truck?”
“It weren’t Santa Claus,” Morris answered.
Keller examined the coversheet on the first folder; carefully scanning the details to be sure she wasn’t imagining what the file represented.
“You know what these are, don’t you?”
Morris nodded. Benjamin craned his neck to try to catch a clear view of the document but Keller blocked his line of sight.
“Let the kid see the damn thing,” Morris said. “Him and Woody Woodpecker over there will be the ones to tear 'em apart anyhow.”
Keller slid the folder across the table to Benjamin. The first thing to catch his eye was the seal of the President of the United States on the folder jacket cover, along with a stamp from the U.S. Secret Service that declared the document Top Secret.
“These folders don’t leave this office,” Keller said to Benjamin.
“Yes ma’am.”
Keller looked at George and Cooper who stood looking both bewildered and excited.
“I mean it,” she admonished the young agents. “They stay locked in the safe when we’re not using them, and they do not leave this office for any reason.”
“Yes ma’am,” they answered together.
“This information could change the course of the world.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And we don’t talk about them outside of this office.”
“Yes, ma’am,” they answered together.
“Not with your wife,” she said to Benjamin, “or your parents. Not with anybody. Not even with each other unless you’re in a completely secure environment.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“These are probably the most important and sensitive documents you’ll ever lay your hands on in your entire career with the FBI.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“For the love of God, Keller,” Morris said. “Let the kid see the damn folders.”
Cooper approached the table and reluctantly picked up one of the folders, examining the coversheet.
“Sweet Jesus,” he said. His voice was barely audible.
“You boys are about to step off into wagonload of crap like you ain’t never seen,” Morris said, still standing at the window.
“If this shit don’t kill you, you’ll wish you’d never heard of Washington DC.”
He didn’t know it, but that same sentiment had already begun to overwhelm Benjamin.
Chapter Twenty
Benjamin and Cooper spent the rest of the afternoon pouring over the classified files Morris brought back to the office from Bureau Chief Lewellen Truck. Although the information in the files seemed routine, they both understood that any disclosure to the wrong people could mean the difference between life and death for the President of the United States.
“Can you believe this shit?” Cooper asked Benjamin.
Benjamin didn’t answer. He hated Cooper’s casual use of profanity, even if they were only innocent verbiage commonly used by non-religious people. His parents, both professors at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the largest Christian colleges in the country, had drilled into him that profanity was only an expression of oral ignorance. He avoided using such words in casual conversation.
“Every date, route, city, hotel, time, you name it, is laid out here in these damn files.
Benjamin sighed at another casual profanity that Cooper probably didn’t even realize he’d said.
Again, Benjamin didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on a page that detailed the itinerary of the President for a two week period. He looked at the date on the page, then at a calendar on the wall.
“It’s the 27th, right?” he said to Cooper.
“Uh-huh. So?”
“So the President is in Detroit. Got there yesterday and leaves later today.”
Cooper nodded. “Uh-huh. Seen it on the news this morning. He’s out there trying to pump up the automobile industry.”
“Pump up?”
“Or is it shore up? Either way, the car manufacturers are falling on their asses and the President thinks he can save them by pouring a few billion dollars into them.”
Benjamin examined the page again.
“He was in Houston, Texas a couple of days ago and in Austin just after that.”
Cooper looked at the page. His point of view of the lettering was upside down but he could make out the fine print.
“Houston?” Cooper repeated.
Benjamin ran his finger down the page and stopped on the line of the itinerary that showed the presidential party had been in Houston, Texas for a fund raiser only three days ago.
“What are you thinking, George?”
Reluctant to second guess the motives of the nation’s highest officer, George hesitated in his answer of Cooper’s question. It boggled his mind to think the President of the greatest nation on the planet, the most powerful man in the world, could be involved in a murder spree that spread across the country.
“George?” Cooper said. “What have you got on your mind?”
“You said you saw on the news where the President was in Detroit today, right?”
“So?”
“And this itinerary says he was in Houston three days ago.”
“Ok.”
“Then did you see the news two days ago about the prostitute found murdered in the basement garage of the same hotel where the presidential party spent the night in Houston?”
This tidbit of news had missed the young agent. He’d been so exhausted from his first couple of days in Washington that he’d turned off all media in his hotel room and gone straight to bed that night.
“Sheee-it,” Cooper drawled. He ran his right hand up over the top of his head, messing up his close-cropped stock of red hair. “So you’re saying…”
“I’m not saying anything,” Benjamin cut him off. “But it’s something we’ve got to look in to. And we’ve got to be careful about it.”
Keller returned to the office from a visit to the cafeteria. She carried a tray with four cups on it; three coffees and one hot tea.
“Got to look into what?”
Benjamin turned the page so the senior agent could see it. Keller’s eyes stopped on the line where Benjamin’s finger marked the Houston presidential stopover.
“I suppose you’re going to make a point, aren’t you George?”
“Yes ma’am,” Benjamin answered. He’d forgotten again about Keller’s fetish about being called ma’am. “Sorry, I mean LK.”
Keller set the cup of hot tea in front of Benjamin and handed a cup of coffee to Cooper.
“Where’s Morris?”
Cooper shook his head. “Don’t know, ma’am,” he answered, himself unaware he’d stepped on what he’d dubbed Keller’s old-woman fetish. “He jumped up a little while ago and left the room. Didn’t say where he was going”.
“That can’t be good,” Keller said.
“No ma’am. Probably not.”
Keller slid the itinerary page away from Benjamin. “You said we needed to look into something.”
Benjamin nodded. “Yes ma’… I mean LK.”
He pointed again at the line on the page that detailed the President’s stop in Houston.
“And?” Keller asked.
“Did you see the news a day or so ago about the prostitute they found murdered in Houston? The one found in the basement parking garage of the same hotel where the presidential party stayed?”
Keller nodded.
“I saw something about it. The media really hammered the President’s security detail for allowing a murder to take place that close to the President. What’s your point?”
While Keller had been speaking, Benjamin turned on his laptop computer and did a Google search for the Houston murder. He turned the screen toward the senior agent.
“See the name?”
Both Cooper
and Keller looked at the screen. Keller read the news headline.
“Elizabeth Simmons. Local prostitute found murdered in presidential hotel.”
Now Benjamin handed another sheet of paper to Keller. She recognized it as the list of known Jack the Ripper victims.
“Look at the third name on the list.”
Keller scanned the page until she came to the name of Elizabeth Stride; Jack the Ripper’s third known victim. She handed the page back to Benjamin.
“You’re not saying the President of the United States is involved in this murder, are you George?”
Benjamin didn’t know how to answer Keller’s direct question. He knew what he suspected, but he wasn’t sure if he could answer her question intelligently.
“I’m not sure what I’m saying, LK.”
“You damn well better be sure what you’re saying,” Keller admonished. “You come out with an accusation like that and all hell’s going to break loose.”
Benjamin looked at the page of names, then again at his computer screen. The prostitute had been found literally cut to pieces in the most brutal fashion. Someone had taken his time with this one, leaving her body in an almost unidentifiable mess. All of her facial features had been sliced away, her eyes gouged out, her throat cut, and even her breasts removed. Her killer had sliced her from pelvis to breastplate and removed her internal organs, scattering them around the floor of the basement garage. It was as if the killer had been in a demonic rage, not just a murderous intent.
What could drive a man, they assumed it was a man, to such violence?
“Then why do we have these files?” Benjamin asked. “If someone higher up doesn’t suspect something, why did Chief Truck send us these files?”
Keller sipped her coffee, staring back at the young agent. She’d learned long ago to never make at outright statement about a case unless she had hard evidence to back it up. Suspicion was not hard evidence. It often led to it, but it wasn’t evidence.
Chapter Twenty-One
Detroit, Michigan, the birthplace of the mass-production auto industry, Motown music, and the Detroit Lions has long suffered an image problem. It’s a city that boasts a multibillion-dollar downtown development, ultramodern motor-manufacturing plants, excellent museums, and one of the nation's largest art galleries. But since the 1960s, media attention has dwelt instead on its huge tracts of urban wasteland, where for block after block there's nothing but the occasional heavily fortified loan shop or grocery store. It’s a city laid to ruin by financial mismanagement and political corruption. And although the city has unarguably suffered and continues to face tremendous challenges, many citizens claim exaggeration or exploitation while the media sheds a harsher than accurate light on their city.
Founded in 1701 by Antoine de Mothe Cadillac as a trading post for the French to do business with the Chippewa, Detroit was no more than a medium-sized port two hundred years later. Then Henry Ford, Ransom Eli Olds, the Chevrolets, and the Dodge brothers began to build their automobile empires. Thanks to the introduction of the mass assembly line, Detroit boomed in the 1920s. But the auto barons sponsored the construction of segregated neighborhoods and unceremoniously dispensed with workers during times of low demand.
Such policies created huge ghettos, resulting in July 1967 in the bloodiest riot in the United States in fifty years. More than forty people died and thirteen hundred buildings were destroyed. The inner city was left to fend for itself while the all-important motor industry was rocked by the oil crises and Japanese competition.
Today, scarred and bruised, Detroit is a leading city in capital crime, political corruption, and decadence of every kind. With thousands of auto and other industrial workers unemployed, the crime rate soars at unprecedented heights. Some stalwart suburban residents tried to rekindle a return to the city's festivals, theatres, clubs, and restaurants, hoping to breathe life back into a once great city. But they were unable to avoid the imminent bankruptcy looming over their dying home, gaining even the attention of the President of the United States.
Even the government bailout of GM and certain financial institutions did little to change the attitude of the people who’d been devastated by the economic recession. Workers secure in their futures were thrust into the realization they were expendable pawns in the great game of big business and high finance. Homes where people raised their families for generations were lost to foreclosure and back taxes. Futures were upended and hope lost at a time when life should have been good. Gangs of displaced urban youths roamed the streets like packs of territorial wolves protective of their turf, unafraid to use violence to protect what they claimed as their property. Drugs and prostitution flowed like water off a mountain through city streets, both easily found and cheaply bought.
The President’s visit to Detroit was meant to show support for the auto industry he claimed to have single-handedly saved from financial ruin. He hoped to secure support from the high percentage of minority black and Hispanic voters, people the conservative radio and television personalities called the ignorant uninformed.
He’d spend the day in Detroit visiting city hall, an inner city school or two to demonstrate he cared about the plight of urban youth, and eventually make his way to a veterans group to show he cared about the men and women who had served their country in uniform. His last stop would be a retirement villa, specifically vetted by his advance team to let the country know he remembered the forgotten generation.
The doctor stayed in the background at all of the President’s official functions, available only if needed in an emergency. If he saw where the President was overextending himself, either physically or mentally, it was his responsibility to step in and insist the chief executive take a break, rest, get something to eat, or even stop for the day. Or if some wacko were to take a shot at him, he would be there to provide emergency medical care. He wasn’t close enough to the President to take a bullet for him, not that he would if the opportunity ever arose. That’s what the Secret Service was for. He was there in case of an emergency, not to become part of it. But in the three years he’d been the President’s physician, he couldn’t remember a single time he’d ever interfered with his itinerary or been witness to a single threat on his life.
Detroit could prove to be a perfect city for hunting. He looked around the room and thought that by the looks of the women here, he could take his pick and not miss his mark by much. He always marveled at how cheaply women display themselves when in the presence of power and prestige. But given the special circumstances, him being a member of the presidential party, he knew he’d have to wait until later in the evening to liberate another whore from her disgusting path.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Morris sat across the table from Washington Bureau Chief Lewellen Truck and Director of the FBI, Carson Wheeling. The stress at the table was palatable with each man knowing the choices they made today could decide the rest of their careers.
The two rookies had outlined a very convincing scenario of the murders based on a preliminary examination of the itinerary files. But how could they accuse the President of the United States of being involved with the series of murders plaguing the country and still expect to survive to draw their pensions?
“You really suspect the President?” Truck asked Morris. “You suspect the highest officer in this country of being a killer?”
Morris leaned back in the swivel chair across from his two superiors. It was as if he were standing on the bow of a lost ship at sea looking at a distant horizon with no hope in sight. If he said the words that were on his mind, he knew they’d reject it completely. If he watered down his suspicion, Truck and Wheeling wouldn’t take him serious. He had to somehow find a medium ground to stand where his two bosses could live with the political ramifications and still give him unlimited freedom to conduct his investigation.
“We’re not real clear on that point,” Morris answered,
Truck and Wheeling leaned forward on the table as if cont
rolled by the same puppeteer. They both laid their pens on the yellow legal pads in front of them and stared across the table at Morris.
“Not clear about which point?” Truck asked.
Wheeling stood and crossed the room to an ornate sideboard where a pitcher of water and a tray of glasses stood lonely vigil. He poured a glass of water and just stood there sipping the cooling drink, watching Morris from across the room. When he finished, he returned to his seat, never having offered either Morris or Truck a glass of water.
Finally, after what seemed several minutes but had only been two or three, Wheeling pointed at Morris.
“You damn well better be sure about what you’re talking about or we’ll all be out on our asses this time next week.”
“Yes sir,” Morris said. “I know.”
Truck examined the notes he’d written on his legal pad.
“If you don’t suspect the President,” he asked, not looking up from his notes, “who do you suspect?”
Morris leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table, an act he knew drove the director crazy. He shifted his eyes between his two bosses and pursed his lips like he was going to give them a definitive answer.
“Well sir,” he began, “right now, I ain’t got one damn clue.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Whore, slut, bitch.
The words spewing from the man’s mouth sickened the small boy curled up on the floor at the foot of the bed. He covered his ears with his hands and tried to block the terrible sounds. He’d heard them so many times before—the cursing and verbal abuse, followed by the inevitable slaps and other violent actions.
The world spun around the room, drawing him into a dark chasm of hate and torment. His eyes stung from the constant stream of tears flowing down his face. Images dark and sinister flashed before his eyes, terrible pictures like nothing he’d ever seen before.
Even with his eyes closed, he could see the dark man that haunted the night. Who is he? Why does he scare me? Why does he speak to me?
