Lainey winked and pulled a small notepad out of her back pocket. “Even got a pen.”
Carrie huffed a sigh of relief. “Take notes please?”
There was little else that Alice could tell them. Lainey wrote down everything necessary for further reference.
Back in the hot car, Carrie looked at Lainey. “Thank you for taking notes. Randy always did that, so I never did. I got caught off guard.”
“Well rest easy boss, I’ll be your note-taker.”
“Lainey, I’m not your boss. We are both OSBI agents and I appreciate your experienced and fresh eyes on this case.” Carrie paused then added, “But I would love it if you would be our official note-taker.”
“Ok, now let’s go talk to Carissa again.” Carrie shoved the SUV into gear and they headed the mile and a half to downtown.
They pulled into the drive of the Skirvin and Carrie showed her ID to the attendants at the front entrance. She parked for easy access, but also so that others could easily come and go around her.
At first, the gift shop looked empty, then from the back storeroom, out walked Carissa with a box. When she saw Carrie a flash of concern crossed her face.
Carrie smiled and stepped over to help her with the box, which was obviously heavy.
“Thanks,” said Carissa. She was very concerned about this revisit from the cops.
“I don’t know if you remember me,” began Carrie.
Carissa nodded. “I remember you and that other guy, the one with the black hair. You were here to talk about that man.”
“Yes. That was Randy Jeffries. This is Lainey Tate. We’ve come to talk with you about him again.” Carrie watched to see what Carrissa’s reaction would be.
With a pinched forehead and concern in her eyes, Carissa said, “That creepy man that was on the bench with me?”
“Yes. I would like to locate him. Can you remember anything else about him that might help us locate him?”
Carissa shook her head way too quickly. “No. I told you everything I knew.”
“I know you did. You were very helpful, but sometimes there are things you don’t realize you know at first. Can I just take a few minutes and ask you a few more questions?”
Carissa nodded. Not sure if it was the chill of the AC or the thought of that creepy man, but Carissa rubbed her bare arms and felt chill bumps.
“Do you remember anything in his shirt pocket?”
Carissa nodded. “He had one of those funny plastic pocket things in there. It had some pens in it.”
“Do you remember what kind of pens; what colors they were?”
Carissa shook her head. “Wait, yes, there was one of each color, and a mechanical pencil.” Her face brightened, proud that she had remembered.
“That’s great Carissa! Now did he say anything at all about why he was at the park? Where he worked? Anything you can remember?”
Carrie gave Carissa a moment to think. “He said he worked at the bank across the street from the park. The one on the north side of the street on the corner. He said he works in the accounting department there.”
“Carissa, thank you so much. You have been a wonderful help.” Carrie felt momentum again. "I know I gave you a card last time, but take this again and if you see him again or if you need anything, will you please call me?”
Carissa nodded. “Should I be worried?”
“No. I don’t think so. But please keep an eye out and be responsible when your are coming to work and leaving. If possible, have a security guard walk with you after dark to your car.”
Back out in front of the Skirvin, Carrie paused. From the back circle drive, they had a full view of Kerr Park and the 1st United Public Bank on the north side.
“What are you thinking?” asked Lainey.
“The pens could be his. Circumstantially it is probable they are his, but we need something more concrete to tie this to him. If we go in guns blazing, we could jar him loose enough to talk to us, or…"
“Or, he could jump off the deep end and run, or the stressor could cause him to kill again.” Lainey knew exactly what could happen.
Carrie looked at Lainey and nodded her head. “What would you do?”
It was a test. Lainey wanted to get it right, so she quickly weighed possible scenarios in her mind. “I think I would wait. I’m as eager as you to charge in there and confront him. But I think it would serve us better to try and find out more about him before we do.”
“I agree. You know, he stands out. It shouldn’t be too hard to find out who he is and then do a background check on him. Let’s go back to the office and do some research.”
On the drive back, Lainey said, “He’s a weird duck. Stuck in the 1950s. So there was a trauma of some sort that stuck him in a time warp. That doesn’t just happen on its own. Something critical has happened in his life to fix him in that way.”
Carrie nodded. “Yes. There is someone in his life he emulates dressed that way. That time period is seventy years ago. It couldn’t be a father. He’s too young.”
“A grandfather, maybe?” asked Lainey.
“Maybe,” said Carrie.
“Then someone has done something horrific to traumatize him to kill prostitutes. Maybe his mother was one, and he is ashamed of it.”
“Could be. Then maybe her death triggered it?” said Carrie. “You know this is all supposition at this stage. But its strong supposition.”
“Now, all we have to do is take it from there to reality,” said Lainey, as she watched the city fly by outside her passenger window.
A serial killer. My first case at the OSBI and it’s a madman, thought Lainey. I don’t know whether to be excited, or terrified.
Chapter 19
Back at the office, Randy rushed up to Carrie as soon as she and Lainey came through the door.
“Rick called. They found ten underage girls at the house. Their ages were from seven to twelve.”
“Did they find the man, or that waitress Jennifer Jensen?” asked Carrie.
“Not sure. Give Rick a call.” Randy gave her shoulder a pat and turned to go back in his office. He felt a strong pull to go with Carrie and get involved deep into the case again. After all, it had been his case too, but he had to pull back and let them do their jobs.
As they entered the war room, Carrie was listening to her phone ring. “Yep.” Came across the line.
“Rick, It’s me, Carrie.” She flipped her phone on speaker so Lainey could also hear.
“Got the girls out of the house. There were ten of them. Man, I want to break some necks.”
“Did you find Sam?”
“No, she wasn’t in there. These girls were all really young. Sam would be eighteen or so by now, right?” asked Rick.
Carrie nodded. “Yes. She would be. Did you find that man or the waitress, Jennifer?”
“No. Just got back here with all the girls. That is our next stop, to find her.”
“Did you have a chance to ask the girls if any of them recognized Sam?”
“No, haven’t had time yet, Carrie.” Rick’s voice was tired. “You just don’t know what we walked into over there. I keep thinking about my own daughters and how all of those girls were someone’s daughters, sisters, babies!”
Carrie’s stomach lurched. This was hard on everyone, but especially Rick because he had daughters of his own. “I can’t imagine how you are handling this, Rick.”
“It’s been hard. I just want to catch them, but we’ve had to bring in the Human Trafficking Task Force to take over on this one. We’ll be helping them, but this is their area of expertise and they’ve been working on some of this for a long time.
“I’ll go look for that waitress and see if I can find anything out about who that man is. I’ll call you when I know something.”
The phone went silent and Carrie looked at Lainey. “Okay, Lainey, let’s put our heads together and figure this thing out.” They were in the war room and looking at the whiteboards.
Carrie
put up a silhouette of a man and put it on the board. Underneath she wrote 1950s man. She moved all leads associated with human trafficking to the second white board. The clean slate felt fresh and ready for action.
“Thoughts?” Carrie asked Lainey.
“From what you said, and hearing from Carissa today, I’m concerned for her. If he is our killer, and we think he is, I think he may have her in his sites.”
Carrie was nodding in agreement as Lainey spoke. “We could put a tail on Carissa.”
“I may be out of line here, but what if we drew his attention away from Carissa?”
Carrie turned to look at Lainey straight on. Her wheels were already churning and was wondering if Lainey was on the same page as she. “Go on.”
“What if, I were to dress up like a prostitute, go downtown and draw him out? I’ve done some undercover work before. I think if we can draw him away from Carissa and to us, then we can snare him.”
“I don’t know that I like that. This is your first case with the OSBI. We don’t normally do undercover jobs. It’s awfully risky.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Carrie hated to admit it, but it might work. “No.”
“Let’s get Randy and see what he thinks. I know he’ll say no, but after recent events, I don’t dare move forward without his approval.”
Carrie sent Randy a quick text asking him to come to the war room. She didn’t have to ask twice since he was just waiting for an excuse to get involved.
“Yep. Whatcha’ got?” asked Randy as he came through the door.
“Lainey this is your idea, you tell him,” said Carrie.
Lainey went through the scenario she had in her mind of going downtown as an undercover prostitute. She had an idea of whom to target and would like to hang out around the underground parking garage of the bank.
They knew he drove an old Plymouth Reliant in blue. They could scout out the garage and see if they could find the car. Lainey would hang out around the car and approach the man and see what would happen.
Randy had a frown on his face. He was still temporary SAC and hated the idea of an operation this risky going on so quickly after he was in charge. So much could go wrong so quickly. And it was incredibly risky for Lainey.
“I don’t like it,” said Randy.
Carrie had been standing to the side and behind Lainey out of the way to let Lainey present her idea to Randy. She now moved around to face both Lainey and Randy.
Carrie only stood saying nothing when finally Randy looked at her. She knew what he was asking her with his eyes. “I think she can do it.”
Randy huffed and shook his head. He rubbed his forehead and turned around. “I say we wait,” said Randy.
“If we wait, something could happen to Carissa,” said Carrie.
“We can tail Carissa.”
Again Carrie stood quietly. Randy needed to come to this decision on his own.
“Tell me more and give me plausible scenarios and outs,” said Randy.
The three of them sat at the table for the next hour and came up with a plan, options for various scenarios, and escape plans for emergencies.
They would go back down to the garage now and try to scout out the car. Then later in the day, Lainey would go down to hang out. Carrie would be in the SUV watching. They would have under cover patrolmen stationed around at various exits and routes.
As soon as Lainey had anything that could absolutely link him to the killings, she was to give the safe word and Carrie and the others would move in.
Once they had a plan, they went over it two more times and gave it their best shot to poke holes in it and come up with solutions. Finally, they felt they had covered all their bases and were ready to give it a go.
Carrie and Lainey made another trip back downtown and parked in the Kerr parking garage across the street from the bank.
“What if he doesn’t park in the bank garage?” asked Lainey.
“We didn’t think of that. Let’s drive around this garage and see if we can see his car.”
They spent the next half hour driving slowly looking carefully for any car that might resemble that man’s car. They found nothing in the Kerr parking garage.
They finally parked and got out of the SUV. Behind the Kerr garage to the north was an outside parking lot. “Well crap, we didn’t check that one,” said Carrie.
Having already parked, they walked the outside parking area on foot. The sun was hot and high and they were soon ready to get back in the shade. A quick walk-through showed no sign of the Plymouth.
They crossed the street to the bank, and walked along the east side, which was now in the shade. Then they turned to the north side where the garage entrance was.
Carrie showed her badge to the garage attendant, and they walked on in. The garage was much larger than they had expected. It was actually three floors of parking, all underground.
It took over an hour for them to walk the garage. When they were done, they realized they had not found his car.
“Okay, so maybe he didn’t come to work today?” asked Lainey.
“Maybe,” replied Carrie. “What if we went into the bank to see if we can see him?”
“If he is there, he’ll spot us and that will change everything,” said Lainey.
They walked back out to the street and turned to go back south along the side of the bank. Just then a metro bus pulled up at the bus stop and Carrie stopped walking.
“The bus. Maybe he rode the bus today,” said Carrie.
“Maybe.”
“So we can wait for him and follow the bus and find his house,” said Carrie. “You can get on the bus and I’ll follow behind in the SUV.”
“Okay, sounds good. Let’s go back and get ready,” said Lainey.
Anthony Simmons was still in shock that the bank had just fired him. After all I’ve done for them, how dare they?
His supervisor had taken him into his office and had tried to explain that Anthony just wasn’t meeting department expectations. Cited reasons were, his slow work pace, lack of technology experience, lack of willingness to learn, and poor interaction with co-workers.
They had asked him if he understood that the previous attempts to warn him had gone in his file as disciplinary warnings and that this was his final one, which would result in termination?
Anthony had just sat there numbly staring at him, attempting to comprehend what was really going on. How could they be firing him?
The shock had still not worn off yet as he drove down the street. The normal sights and sounds of downtown were blurry and surreal. His reactions were robotic as he stopped at red lights and moved through traffic.
Suddenly, he was jolted out of his stupor when he saw that whore cross the street in front of his car. Sheets of anger slicing through him displaced the stupor.
A horn honked behind him and startled, he raised his foot off of the brake. His mind was careening out of control, and he surrendered to it. Then he knew. He knew why he had been fired. His true mission in life was to cleanse those in need, the dirty ones.
Relief rushed over him as he welcomed a renewed sense of purpose. They had released him from the bank so he could pursue his mission full-time.
He was certain that divine providence had caused that particular woman to walk in front of him at that precise moment. It was an awakening.
He entered the small home he had shared with his mother. The proximity to downtown had made it perfect for working at the bank. He had never seen a reason to move.
During the rest of the drive home, he knew that he must develop a new system to increase his effect. He would need a way to cleanse more than one at a time. Efficiency. He needed to be more efficient to be more productive.
His heavy footfalls echoed sharply on the basement stairs. Yes, this will do nicely, he thought as he stopped just as the basement came into full view.
There was little in the basement. Anthony prided himself in living simply with few possess
ions, but the truth was that he rarely had money to buy anything with.
While his mother was alive, he had given every penny over to her. She had needed his money when she could no longer walk the streets as a dirty whore.
He puffed his chest out at the memory. That tragic life, he now realized, was the very thing that had groomed him and brought him to his destiny. Now, he knew. Now, it was time.
The basement floor was cold, not damp, but cold. They had done the concrete floor in an era when quality mattered, so it was solid and flat with only one slight crack in the corner.
The walls were concrete blocks stacked solidly, one on of top of the other. The only light in the room other than the single bulb hanging from the center of the room, was a tiny window near the ceiling.
Back upstairs, Anthony made a list of all that he would need. He had to be quick so he could start immediately.
He had gained some carpentry and construction skills from their next-door neighbor when he was in high school and college. Another smile spread across his face as he realized that had been destiny as well.
He finished the list and headed to get what he needed. By early evening, he was done. Energy and strength flowed through him as he had worked in the basement, unlike at the bank. But then this was his purpose in life.
Now, it was time.
Carrie and Lainey were back downtown by four p.m. Not being sure what time Anthony got off work, they wanted to be early. They were positioned in the outside parking area to the east of the bank.
They had received a call from Rick and he could not find the waitress from Lawdie’s. Also, there had been no fingerprints or other evidence on the ink pens. The only findings were a type of gelled hand sanitizer.
Lainey was dressed provocatively. They had both agreed that if the sundress that Carissa had worn spooked the man into believing her to be a prostitute, then Lainey only needed to dress the same.
Their goal wasn’t for her to be pegged as a prostitute outright, but enough to make sure to catch his attention and set him on edge.
Lainey wasn’t comfortable dressing in clothes that were so revealing. As they sat in the SUV, she pulled and tugged at them in an attempt to cover herself.
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